Service area
Four counties, four different holes
We work out of Tallahassee across Leon, Wakulla, Gadsden and Jefferson. Those four counties look like one market on a map and they are not one market in the ground. Here is the difference, in USDA's numbers rather than ours.
01 / The ground
What USDA says about the dirt your posts go in
The Natural Resources Conservation Service maps every acre in the country and rates it, among other things, for how aggressive it is toward buried concrete and toward uncoated steel. Nobody in this trade quotes those ratings. They are the most relevant published numbers there are for a fence post.
| County | Mapped acres | Rated High, concrete | Rated High, bare steel | Water within 24 in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Leon | 449,200 | 71% | 48% | 65% |
| Wakulla | 409,400 | 88% | 69% | 73% |
| Gadsden | 338,100 | 57% | 30% | 40% |
| Jefferson | 392,400 | 76% | 54% | 72% |
Two things in that table are worth stopping on.
The first is that not one rated acre in Leon County is rated Low for corrosion of concrete. Every acre USDA has assessed is Moderate or High, and about seven in ten are High. Concrete is the thing holding your posts in the ground, and the ground here is working on it from the day it cures.
The second is the bare steel column. Just under half of rated Leon County, more than two thirds of Wakulla, is rated High against uncoated steel. That is the argument for galvanizing stated by somebody with nothing to sell: a bare steel post in this ground is not a long term proposition, and a galvanized one is a different object.
02 / County by county
Where we work, and what it digs like
-
Leon County
USDA survey FL073
Two counties in one. North of the Cody Scarp the ground is loam over clay and holds together; south of it you are into deep sand that will not.
Tallahassee · Bradfordville · Woodville · Fort Braden · Miccosukee · Chaires · Lake Jackson
- Dominant drainage
- Well drained, 35%
- High to concrete
- 71%
- High to bare steel
- 48%
- Water within 24 in
- 65%
-
Wakulla County
USDA survey FL129
The wettest and the hardest on buried metal of the four. Nearly three quarters of it has water within two feet of the surface at some point in a normal year.
Crawfordville · Panacea · Sopchoppy · St. Marks · Medart · Shell Point · Wakulla Springs
- Dominant drainage
- Very poorly drained, 36%
- High to concrete
- 88%
- High to bare steel
- 69%
- Water within 24 in
- 73%
-
Gadsden County
USDA survey FL039
The kindest footing of the four. Half of it is well drained and it has the lowest share of ground rated High against steel.
Quincy · Havana · Midway · Chattahoochee · Gretna · Greensboro
- Dominant drainage
- Well drained, 52%
- High to concrete
- 57%
- High to bare steel
- 30%
- Water within 24 in
- 40%
-
Jefferson County
USDA survey FL065
Split like Leon. The uplands around Monticello dig like north Tallahassee; head south toward the Wacissa and the water table comes up to meet you.
Monticello · Lloyd · Wacissa · Aucilla
- Dominant drainage
- Well drained, 34%
- High to concrete
- 76%
- High to bare steel
- 54%
- Water within 24 in
- 72%
The storm everybody here still measures against.
Hurricane Hermine came ashore at 1:30 in the morning on 2 September 2016, just east of St. Marks, near the Wakulla and Jefferson county line. That is not a statistic about Florida. That is the end of one of the four counties on this page. Sustained winds at landfall were near 80 mph, and in Tallahassee the National Weather Service reports that approximately 80% of customers lost power.
A fence does not care about the category. It cares about the gust and about what is holding the post. Both of those are decided long before the storm has a name.
NOAA National Weather Service Tallahassee, "Hermine (2016) is the First Hurricane to Make Landfall Along the Apalachee Bay Coast Since 1966". Event summary.
03 / Check us
Look up your own address
Everything on this page came out of a free federal database that you can open right now. Go to USDA Web Soil Survey, draw a box around your property, and open the Soil Reports tab. The drainage class, the depth to the seasonal high water table and both corrosivity ratings are in there for your parcel, not for your county.
If you want to read the full description of whatever soil series comes back, every one of them is published in the Official Soil Series Descriptions.
We are telling you this because it is the fastest way to find out whether the company quoting your fence knows what is under it. Ask all of us what your soil is. It is a fair question and it has a published answer.
Inside those four counties?
Call or text and we will come walk the line. If you are just outside, ask anyway, because the edge of a service area is a conversation rather than a rule.