North American jack pine makes sturdier, longer-lasting posts.

Why choose a cheap fence post that you’ll have to replace in 5 to 10 years when you can have top-quality posts that you won’t have to worry about for the next 25 years – guaranteed!

VWP uses only jack pine for its fence posts because this slow-growing pine has tightly-packed rings that give it uncommon strength and durability. These unique properties come from the 60 to 80 years that it takes jack pine to reach diameters of 7 to 10 inches. The end result is well worth the wait.

You get a full 25 years of worry-free service from these extraordinary, taper-peeled fence posts! In contrast to our posts, cheaper “dowelled” fence posts can begin to rot at the ground line after only 5 years, because too much sapwood (the treatable part of a post) has been removed, leaving too little preservative in the post. In other words, dowelled posts can represent a false economy, and ultimately increase fencing costs due to the increased labour for post removal and re-installation that comes with premature rotting.

As you are well aware, 5 years can fly by really quickly. Do you really want to replace fence posts that often?

Compared to non-tapered dowelled posts,
taper-peeled posts are the best choice!

For starters, you get more wood for your money.

Tapered posts are peeled by a high-speed machine that follows the natural contour of the log. The finished post has the same shape as the original log: because the tree is tapered, the post is tapered.

A taper-peeled post diameter should have a 1” taper from the small end to the large end. These posts are sized by the small end. Example: a 7-foot, 4-5”post can range in diameter from 4” to 5” from one end to the other. Contrast this with a non-tapered dowelled post, which is exactly 4 ¼” in diameter from the top to the bottom.

Non-tapered dowel posts are 50% weaker.

A non-tapered dowelled post is a log that’s been pushed through a spinning ring to form a smooth, decorative post.

This lack of taper makes the post about 15% lighter and 50% weaker than comparable, traditional tapered peeled posts. It’s the milling process that makes these posts weaker, because the heartwood is often off-centre.

Their aesthetics and uniformity of size make non-tapered dowelled posts acceptable for decorative acreage fencing. They’re also less expensive to ship. But these posts should never be used as horizontal braces because they will weaken prematurely. Where greater strength is called for (like bracing units and hydraulic driving), tapered posts are clearly the better choice.

Don’t take our word for it.
An extensive research study backs us up.

According to a research report from the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Forestry, “peeled tapered posts were more than twice as strong as the dowelled posts . . .  as well as being more flexible.” To read the entire study, please download the PDF.

Our pressure-treated penta ag fence posts come in a variety of lengths and diameters. All of them are available with either blunt or sharp ends.