Surface Mount Posts for Iron and Aluminum Fence

Some fence projects call for putting a fence in an area where you can’t bury a post in cement. It could be a cement pool deck, a patio or even a masonry wall top. For those projects, we have a couple of specialty posts for use with our Stronghold Iron and Infinity Aluminum fence.

Let’s start with the solution for our Stronghold Iron fences and gates. We utilize what’s called a welded flange post. It comes only in a 2.5” square post size and 3ft, 4ft, 5ft and 6ft lengths to match the fence. As you can see by my example piece here, we have welded a 5” square plate on the bottom of the post that we refer to as a flange.

The flange has 4 mounting holes pre-drilled for you. They are a ½” diameter, but we recommend utilizing 3/8” hardware to allow a little wiggle room for adjustment.

The flange will stick out roughly 1.25” from the side of the post, so if you are mounting up against a wall or pillars, be sure you account for that in your measurements.

The surface mounting solution is a little different for our Infinity Aluminum line. Since aluminum is lighter and not as strong as steel and iron, we don’t do a welded flange. For our aluminum fences we use this flange post insert. As the name implies, this piece is inserted into the bottom of the post and then tightened at the bottom so that these two pieces press against the inner post wall for a tight fit.

The aluminum flange posts inserts come in a size to match our 2” and 2.5” aluminum posts. The 2” post flange insert is roughly 4” square whereas the post flange insert for our 2.5” posts is about 4.5” square. Both have two 3/8” mounting holes in the base that we recommend using 5/16” or ¼” mounting hardware for.

Unlike our iron flange posts, with the aluminum posts you will utilize standard ground posts that you will cut to height. So if you had a 7ft tall post for your 5ft tall fence, you would trim the post to roughly 5’2” long and insert your flange into the bottom before installation.

To drill the holes, you will want to get a masonry drill bit. They are specially made for drilling into concrete, brick and masonry. Be sure to get the size specified on the mounting hardware you bought.

While you can use a standard drill for this task, I would highly recommend using or renting a drill with a hammer action as this one has. It makes the drilling go at least 3x faster than using a standard drill alone.

There are many different mounting hardware options, but the two that we most commonly see employed are tapcons and concrete wedge anchors.

The first is a tapcon anchor. It looks like a standard bolt, but is engineered to be screwed into masonry materials. For this option, you pre-drill your hole to the width and depth noted on the hardware, put your post in place, set the tapcon in the drilled holes and then tighten it in place.

The second option is a concrete wedge anchor. It utilizes a specialized threaded portion that is tapped into the hole. When its tightened, the small collar at the bottom of the piece will flare out and hold the threaded portion in the material tightly. To use a concrete wedge anchor, you first pre-drill your hole to the width and depth noted on the box. Next, tap the threaded anchor portion into your hole. Place the post over the threaded portion. Place your washer over the threaded portion and on top of the flange. Lastly, place the nut and thread it on.

I hope this video has helped show you how our specialized flange posts allow you to mount our fences on top of a surface or wall. There are other methods for installing our fence over a surface, but utilizing the flange posts is the most DIY friendly and straightforward.

Jason Kauffman
Iron Fence Shop®
800-261-2729 Toll Free
[email protected]
www.ironfenceshop.com