Use A Car Essential To Remove An Old Fence Post Without Digging

While removing an old fence might not take all day, it's still a time-consuming process that takes a lot of physical effort. If the fence posts are sunk into concrete, the job becomes significantly more difficult, as these posts are really tough to remove by hand. The rule of thumb that helps you easily install fence posts is to bury about one-third of the height of the post in the ground, which means there could be a lot of buried concrete that you can't see, complicating the job. The concrete could be 2 feet deep in the ground, which adds significant weight to the post, complicating removal. To aid in the process, you can lever the post at least part of the way out using a car jack.

Some people might try to dig around a fence post with a shovel and loosen the concrete section. They may decide to leave the concrete in the ground and cut the post free at ground level. YouTuber Fix It With Fowler has shared a different DIY option for loosening fence posts and easily popping them out of the ground. You can't set the car jack on the ground,  so the creator used scrap wood to make a support frame a couple of feet tall next to the post. He screwed another piece of timber to the post and then positioned the car jack underneath it. By operating the jack as you would to raise a car, the YouTuber slowly lifts the post out of the ground. Once the fence post is loose, you can pull it the rest of the way out by hand.

While this is a novel idea, using a car jack to remove fence posts does carry some downsides. Chief among them is the risk of injury. Most commonly, using such a large, heavy tool can lead to hand, finger, and wrist damage, as well as upper back problems. Plus, if the support frame you've built is not sturdy enough, it could collapse under the force of the jack, potentially leading to injuries. Wear safety gear when attempting this hack, including leather gloves and eye protection. If the car jack doesn't seem to be moving the post, strike the timber with a sledge hammer a few times to loosen it before trying the technique again.

It could also be unnecessarily time-consuming. Depending on the fence post in question, it arguably takes longer to set up the car jack and frame, attach the scrap wood to the post, and operate the jack than it does to simply dig the post out of the ground using a shovel. If the person who built the fence installed the fence posts without cement — they used, perhaps, gravel or dirt to fill the post holes — it's very likely you could loosen the post with just a shovel and manually lift it out in less time. However, if you lack the strength and stamina for digging and pulling hefty objects, this hack may be worth the effort to set it up.