Just saw how my neighbor fixed his fence gap in 20 minutes with a trick I never thought of

I was out watering my plants in Phoenix yesterday and noticed my neighbor had this weird gap under his gate where the ground sloped. Instead of digging up the concrete or buying a whole new gate, he just took a scrap piece of rubber horse mat and bolted it to the bottom. It flexes with the ground and looks totally normal. I asked him about it and he said he saw it on a ranch video from Idaho. The thing is, my gate has had a 4 inch gap for 2 years and I was ready to spend $200 on a carpenter. Has anyone else used rubber matting for weird yard fixes like this?

3 comments

3 Comments

parker_palmer4420d ago

That bit about the conveyor belt is interesting, my cousin actually used an old tractor tire tread once to patch a gap under his shed in Tucson. Worked great until a javelina decided it looked tasty and ripped it clean off one night. Ended up finding the thing half chewed up in his neighbor's yard.

wood.faith21d ago

Horse mats are fine and all but you better hope the ground doesn't shift much during monsoon season. I tried something similar with a heavy rubber doormat under my gate last year and after one good rain the mat sagged and actually made the gap worse because it trapped all the dirt and debris underneath. Plus if it gets hot enough that mat will start to warp and stink like rubber on a 115 degree Phoenix afternoon. A friend in Mesa used a piece of thick conveyor belt from a mining supply place and it's held up for years without any of those problems, so maybe the type of rubber matters a whole lot more than folks think.

william_garcia20d ago

Honestly, that conveyor belt idea from @wood.faith's friend in Mesa makes a ton of sense. Tbh, I've seen this kind of thing happen with cheap rubber mats at my own place, where they just turn into a dirt magnet after a few weeks. Ngl, I've got a buddy who tried a similar mat under his shed door and it ended up trapping moisture so bad he had a rotten wood problem by fall. The type of rubber really does matter for anything that sits outside and takes a beating from the elements. Makes me wonder if most people just grab whatever mat is on sale without thinking about how it'll hold up in real weather.