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Just realized that 'helpful' neighbor turned my fence project into a 3 week ordeal
My neighbor Bill offered to help me set fence posts last month and kept insisting we use quick-set concrete instead of waiting for regular mix to cure. He poured all 12 bags wrong and now 4 posts are leaning after the first rain. I get that he was trying to be nice but how do you tell someone their shortcut cost you $200 and a weekend without making it weird?
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graywright5mo ago
Oh man, that's rough. I had a buddy do something similar with my deck - he swore up and down that using deck screws instead of proper lag bolts would save me time. Fast forward two months and the whole railing was wobbling like a loose tooth. Had to tear out half of it and redo it myself, plus the material cost. In my experience, people who offer "help" like this usually have good intentions but terrible follow-through. Your neighbor probably genuinely thought he was being helpful, but that doesn't make the leaning posts and wasted weekend any less frustrating. Hope you can find a way to fix it without making things awkward - maybe just tell him you're going with a different approach next time and leave it at that.
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drew_chen5mo ago
Actually, deck screws CAN work fine for railing posts if you use the right ones. I've built like 5 decks for friends and family and always use structural screws like GRK or Spax, rated for shear loads. Regular drywall screws are what cause problems, but a good structural screw is actually stronger than a lag bolt in most cases. You just gotta pre-drill and make sure you're not stripping the head. I had to redo a railing once because the homeowner used deck screws from a random bucket in the garage. Once I switched to the proper ones, that railing has been solid for 4 years now.
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