Protecting wooden poles with PET bottles for pennies

When burying wooden poles without waterproofing, you can’t expect them to stay in the ground for more than a few years, even if it’s wood that’s quite rot-resistant. There are many methods of waterproofing, from cheap to downright expensive. Let's look at how you can protect poles from rotting really reliably, and inexpensively.

Materials:

wood antiseptic or copper sulfate;
varnish, paint or bitumen mastic;
plastic bottles.

The process of protecting poles from rotting using PET bottles

Parts of the pillars stripped of bark for digging must be burned to a dark color. This will create the first line against rotting. After this, the surface is impregnated with a specialized antiseptic; if the construction budget is limited, then you can simply use a solution of copper sulfate. Such impregnation will make the wood an unfavorable environment for fungus, mold and putrefactive bacteria.

Next, you need to paint the underground part of the pillar. You can use any weather-resistant varnish or paint; mastic will also work.

The fourth barrier against rotting will be the plastic shell.To do this, a PET bottle or a bottle with a cut neck is stretched onto the lower end of the post. Then the plastic is shrinked with a construction hairdryer. Then the next bottle is pulled a little higher, but without a bottom, and also heat-shrinked.