My Exploding Cedar Mailbox Post

By Mark J. Donovan

A few weeks ago I replaced my old pressure treated mailbox post with a new and more attractive, prefabricated cedar mailbox post. When selecting it from the bin at the local home improvement store I noticed that all of them had knots and hairline cracks running the length of them. I chose one with a minimal hairline crack and chalked up the cracks as more of an aesthetic imperfection rather than a structural one. I was wrong!

Last night my daughter asked while standing at our front door, why was the mailbox lying on the ground? After getting over the initial shock of seeing my new mailbox post lying broken on the ground, I looked closely at the post and did not observe any types of marks on it that would give any indication that it was hit. What I did notice, however, was that that the post had calved on the hairline crack that I had observed when I purchased it. Apparently the 20 mile an hour wind gusts we had during the day were too much for it.

What was even more annoying was that the cedar post splintered as if it exploded. Consequently it was virtually impossible to marry the two halves back together.

So, I will find myself removing the post, and the 100 lbs of concrete that it is set in, this weekend. However this time I will replace it with a traditional pressure treated mailbox post.