Replacing a Mailbox
A long time ago in October of 2020 I moved into a house and not more than a week later someone ran over my mailbox. With some family help we put a little PVC pipe inside the destroyed structure and got it standing again.
This wasn't perfect by any stretch and needed to be replaced. Of course I delayed that until Hurricane Milton really did a number on it four years later. At this point the door on the mailbox wouldn't stay closed and if you pushed it too hard it would just fall off the stand dangling by a piece of plastic.
So the weekend of April 12, 2025 it was time to finally fix the mailbox. Our plan of action was:
- Remove the entire base (including old concrete base)
- Remove the entire thorn bush
- Remake the decorative edging
- Place a 4x4 hardened via concrete
- Place a new mailbox.
So we got to work.
A bit of manual effort to slice and dice the old shrub into pieces, but once we started making a dent the rest of the dirt collapsed without the root structure. This paired with some strong heat and manual labor took a bit of time to dig out this concrete block. Once the walls surrounding the concrete were gone it was time to just push the block back and forth until it wedged itself out.
A bit of a panic attack occurred when we pulled out the old structure and some plastic caution banner came out saying "TELEPHONE CABLE". It looked massively aged and we couldn't actually find a cable, so I presume it was a dated old thing underground.
Creepy in the moment that we struck something we shouldn't have and possibly could have been a lesson learned about "call before digging", but after watching my neighbors replace their mailbox - I figured mailbox replacing was fair game. However, not before running back inside and confirming my Internet was still in working order.
With the hole dug we just planned on reusing that hole with a new batch of concrete and our new mailbox post. Which went really easy with two people as one could just hold the stand while the other filled the hole with concrete.
Now most guides say to let this concrete sit for 24-72 hours, but we didn't have time for that. We killed some time watching The Masters with dinner and headed back out after it got time to harden. Thankfully as we continued to attach more pieces of the mailbox our level stayed aligned perfectly.
That was until we realized I purchased the wrong mailbox base. Apparently I had a letter E base and my mailbox was letter A, with a post that supported A, B, C or D. Such a weird organization pattern of adapters, but with an Ace Hardware 5 minutes away - we were back in action with a base that supported letter A.
A few mistakes made with either not screwing something in all the way or breaking off a screw, but finally hours later it was complete. Nothing like working in 80 degree weather in the peak heat of the day for hours, but it was well worth it to be able to look at a completed mailbox.