At Paramount Pickets we use high quality Cypress Pine fence posts in the construction of your fence. The versatility of Cypress has allowed us to cut, shape, rout, sand and form your posts into an unlimited variety of shapes for both function and appearance.
Unlike steel posts, timber is a natural product and as such can be affected by the sun, moisture and ageing. In Australia fence posts are only available in an unseasoned or green state.
Seasoned means just that. The timber has aged one, two or more years since it was cut from the living tree. “Green” or “Unseasoned” timber is full of water. The moisture is slowly released from the cells in the fibres of the wood and gravitated to outside of the timber and eventually become stabilized to the environment in which it is placed.
During seasoning all timbers shrink due to the cells drying and becoming smaller in volume. Cypress Pine has uniformed shrinkage which is amongst the lowest rates of all Australian Commercial Timbers. To add to this Cypress comes with a Class 1 Durability rating, greater than all other softwoods and most hardwoods and is termite resistant meaning no nasty chemicals are needed to protect the timbers.
During seasoning process Cypress will often exhibit “movement”. This may be in the form of twisting, bending, distorting and surface cracking. This cracking is known as checking. This movement during the seasoning period does not affect the strength or durability of the timber. It cannot therefore be considered a defect.
Any changes to the appearance of the fence post, which are the result of seasoning are not possible to predict and in any case are part of the natural products of timber.
A Cypress post can often take up to 12 months to fully season and become stable. Surface checking will almost always close up and become invisible. During this period if you are concerned you can fill the highly visible checks with a soft type of filler like Polly filler. This is because when the seasoning process has finished, soft filler can be easily squeezed out by the post to be either sanded or scraped off.
Whether you leave your posts to naturally season, or you undertake minor cosmetic maintenance part way during seasoning, the outcome will be that you will have a beautiful long lasting timber post.
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