Fencing
What to do about a rotted fence post
Can a rotted fence post be repaired?
No. Once a post is soft at the soil line it's structurally finished, and nothing applied to the surface restores it. It can be replaced individually without rebuilding the fence, as long as the neighbouring posts are still sound.
How to check
Push a screwdriver into the post at ground level. Sound wood resists. Rotted wood takes it with almost no pressure, and that tells you everything you need.
Check several posts, not just the obvious one. They were all installed the same day in the same conditions.
Replacing one post
Straightforward work: the section either side gets supported, the old post and its concrete come out, a new one goes in, and the panels get re-hung.
This is worth doing when it's genuinely isolated — a low spot, or a post that took a sprinkler head for years.
When it isn't one post
If several probe soft, you're not looking at a repair, you're looking at the beginning of a replacement happening one call-out at a time.
That's the point to decide deliberately rather than paying for it in instalments over three years.
The upgrade moment
Replacing posts is the natural time to change what they're made of. Steel takes the rot question off the table permanently, and the existing pickets and rails can often be reused.
Same fence to look at, different clock.
Rot doesn't get repaired. It gets replaced, once, properly.