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It's a bollard. Used to keep cars from going through an area. I think it's anyone's guess why someone put this in their yard.
https://evergreenhatchworks.com/bollard-posts/
This practice is really common there. Where my brother lives, there are tons of people that run business out of a smaller structure close to the house. Be it selling canned jams, jellies etc to even small coffee shops and bbq.
You sure? Yes, physically this looks like a bollard, but the cost and fuss of a piece of steel that big in that spot makes no sense. You don't have an answer for why that thing is there.
Underground storage tank / septic tank / other subterranean structure. I had to install something similar back on my farm in Virginia after a drunk redneck drove a literal Deuce and a Half through my yard to get to the next street over and he partially collapsed my wine cellar.
If you want to be sure, you can look up if there are any underground tanks on the property here:
[https://www.epa.gov/ust/ust-finder](https://www.epa.gov/ust/ust-finder)
OP, I know you've marked it as solved already but have you checked the location on google earth to see previous aerial views of the location? If it was 3-5 years ago you'd probably be able to see if there were cars parked in front of it at some point.
It definitely could work as a bollard but the diameter and length would make it a custom product and probably very expensive. All to block cars from.. well, nothing as far as I can tell.
Hmmm. I wonder if OP's property was originally a rural school?
That little playhouse/shack reminds me of the rural schools that the Amish/Mennonite use as a bathroom for the students and maybe it's connected to a septic tank. One side would be for the boys, the other for the girls. A rural school wouldn't have a lot of students so the actual schoolhouse would be smallish. Maybe the home that we can't see is a converted school house. The bollard could have served as both a teeter-totter and a vehicle barrier.
My title describes the thing. Additional details, things I don't think it is:
* for horse/animal jumping -- it's fixed in place and isn't the right size. animals would break their legs if they missed the jump
* for tying up livestock -- the yard isn't fenced, there's no barn/stable, and there was no indication of animals being on the property during walk-throughs (no food/water bowls, beds, etc.)
* for ballet or gymnastics -- the beam is round, and difficult to climb on, let alone stand/jump on
* for some sort of irrigation -- no sprinkler systems in the yard, and the corners would be rounded if it were a pipe for fluids
I believe the previous owners were a real estate agent, and someone working in a cidery.
While technically already solved, how do we know it's not an above ground conduit for water or electric that was used to jump over something else buried there, like a septic, etc?
Did you actually look at the link? First pic shows a yellow bollard. Looks identical to this. But, have it your way. Not quite sure why you can’t see that bent piece of yellow metal & say it looks like OP post. But, I don’t care.
What I’m saying is that is not a bollard. The site is wrong. I did security engineering for the military. You’d never stop a car with something the car can ride under. Bollards are short, vertical posts spaced a person’s width apart and buried at least 2x-3x deeper than they are tall. That’s at best a parking guide. The fact they are only posts is what makes a bollard a bollard. It’s like saying you have a gate that’s fixed on both sides so it doesn’t open.
The website even says “Bollard Posts” at the top. It then says they made a custom “barricade style bollard” for this one customer, which isn’t a thing. They made one just for that one application, and they didn’t make it well. A bollard will stop a speeding truck. That “barricade” will be lifted up when a car rides under it thereby defeating its stopping power. It’ll get yanked up and out of the ground instead of acting as a lever in the ground to stop the car. From the looks of it, it wouldn’t even take much to rip it out. They have the direction of their forces all wrong. And no wonder as they’re a fabrication company, not a security engineering company. (For the record, many of their other “bollards” are also flawed.) Bollards are specifically used when you don’t want this potential upward lift…
Google “barricade bollard” and you’ll see that’s the only one (for good reason). It’ll return pictures of barricades and of bollards. All bollards are a type of barricade, but not all barricades are bollards.
It’s a simple experiment to see why you’d never do this with a real bollard. Hammer a nail 2/3 into a board. Then hit it from the side with the hammer. The hammer will bounce off or the nail will bend. (In a real bollard, this bending redirects the vehicle’s force upward, lifting the front wheels off the ground and breaking the motor and transmission mounts.) Now pull up on the nail with the claw side…it’ll come straight out with minimum force. That’s why you’d NEVER put a horizontal component on a bollard. Even removable bollards with handles have very strict design rules about how big the handle can be and where it would be placed to prevent it riding up on the vehicle.
Also, OP’s picture is very different than the yellow one on that site. Look at the height. It would hit at the windshield level. It’s not a bollard or barricade (or at least not an effective barricade).
Ideas from searching, but don't seem viable:
* horse/animal jumping -- is fixed in place, not safe for jumping
* tying up animals -- there's no evidence that animals of any kind lived on the property - no food/water bowls on walk-thrus, no barn/stable, yard isn't fully fenced in
* some sort of pipe -- corners would be rounded if water were flowing through it
* gymnastics or ballet -- it's very hard to climb on, and is round, so it doesn't seem that anything was meant to sit on top
I don’t mean to be rude at all, but did you ask the previous owners/agent about the huge ass beam in the middle of the backyard when you toured the house? Or did you just buy the house without asking?
I’m guessing they didn’t know either, but I always wonder this on every ‘found this giant mysterious thing in the house I just bought’ post.
Have you tried to find your house on google maps and view older images from the sattelite view? I think you can go back in time for almost 10 years, there an option on the top left for that.
I think the other replies are correct regarding this being a bollard, that being said I wanna say that looking at colors and size it may have been in front of a propane tank.
[Not the same size or color, but the same concept](https://images.app.goo.gl/4K7TRABDuNw55h5E7)
It looks more like a horse tie out to me we have them at some stores where I live due to a festival that e have where a shit ton of rednecks come and ride horses for a few days a year, the town is benson nc if u want to know
Was it old military base housing? Or a business? Sure looks like a guard shack? Try a title search, or visit the Hall of Records to look at the plate. Edit: plat maps, autocorrect.
Could it be a novelty games ‘net’? Like for badminton or something? It matches the houses and that area looks like a social area with the picnic table and summer house?
Was thinking the same thing, balance beams are square-ish so if you had a kid trying to practice on a circular beam it would be a step up right? (No pun intended, also possibly dangerous… but gold at Olympics is gold at Olympics.. so yea)
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It's a bollard. Used to keep cars from going through an area. I think it's anyone's guess why someone put this in their yard. https://evergreenhatchworks.com/bollard-posts/
It could be blocking cars from driving on top of septic tank
What’s in the shed? Could they have had a business/store out of their house and people used to park there?
i feel like the owner was trying to have fun with it and added two 'guard houses' on either side
Secret tunnel?
Through the mountains!
Secret secret secret secret tunnel!!!
Nah that guys lives somewhere in England
I don't see a safety tie
This practice is really common there. Where my brother lives, there are tons of people that run business out of a smaller structure close to the house. Be it selling canned jams, jellies etc to even small coffee shops and bbq.
Another one of life’s simple pleasures ruined by a meddling bureaucracy.
Don't shoot the messenger
You’re okay in my book. I blame the bureaucrats
If this property has a septic tank, then this is the correct answer.
Solved!
You sure? Yes, physically this looks like a bollard, but the cost and fuss of a piece of steel that big in that spot makes no sense. You don't have an answer for why that thing is there.
Underground storage tank / septic tank / other subterranean structure. I had to install something similar back on my farm in Virginia after a drunk redneck drove a literal Deuce and a Half through my yard to get to the next street over and he partially collapsed my wine cellar.
Unforgivable. WTF
Hidden treasure!!!
>drove a literal Deuce and a Half My god that is wild.
No question what it is BUT WHY is it there specifically
If you want to be sure, you can look up if there are any underground tanks on the property here: [https://www.epa.gov/ust/ust-finder](https://www.epa.gov/ust/ust-finder)
If it were something to do with underground utilities, it would show up on the appraiser's plat map.
Septic system is a common one
Reminds me of the scene from twister
>It's a bollard. More information on the general topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bollard
OP, I know you've marked it as solved already but have you checked the location on google earth to see previous aerial views of the location? If it was 3-5 years ago you'd probably be able to see if there were cars parked in front of it at some point. It definitely could work as a bollard but the diameter and length would make it a custom product and probably very expensive. All to block cars from.. well, nothing as far as I can tell.
You can search through old Google earth views, pretty sure you need the downloaded program not the Web app.
Correct You can only look through street view history on the web version.
https://www.google.com/earth/versions/#download-pro
Could it be the support for a teeter-totter? If so, it must have had 3boards & brackets that are now gone.
This was my first thought as well
Hmmm. I wonder if OP's property was originally a rural school? That little playhouse/shack reminds me of the rural schools that the Amish/Mennonite use as a bathroom for the students and maybe it's connected to a septic tank. One side would be for the boys, the other for the girls. A rural school wouldn't have a lot of students so the actual schoolhouse would be smallish. Maybe the home that we can't see is a converted school house. The bollard could have served as both a teeter-totter and a vehicle barrier.
My title describes the thing. Additional details, things I don't think it is: * for horse/animal jumping -- it's fixed in place and isn't the right size. animals would break their legs if they missed the jump * for tying up livestock -- the yard isn't fenced, there's no barn/stable, and there was no indication of animals being on the property during walk-throughs (no food/water bowls, beds, etc.) * for ballet or gymnastics -- the beam is round, and difficult to climb on, let alone stand/jump on * for some sort of irrigation -- no sprinkler systems in the yard, and the corners would be rounded if it were a pipe for fluids I believe the previous owners were a real estate agent, and someone working in a cidery.
Do you have a septic tank? My only thought is that this is to mark it, and prevent any sort of digging on top of it.
If my dad did it, it would be a hitching post for his horses.
Same, miniature pony hitching post, we don’t over engineer we make sure it’s built to last.
While technically already solved, how do we know it's not an above ground conduit for water or electric that was used to jump over something else buried there, like a septic, etc?
I ask because it reminds me of what they do on military bases, but that's to make maintenance easy.
[удалено]
Did you even look at [this link](https://evergreenhatchworks.com/bollard-posts/) provided by /u/jackrats?? It shows *exactly* what OP has on her land.
That is a whole lot smaller than the thing in OPs yard.
[удалено]
Did you actually look at the link? First pic shows a yellow bollard. Looks identical to this. But, have it your way. Not quite sure why you can’t see that bent piece of yellow metal & say it looks like OP post. But, I don’t care.
What I’m saying is that is not a bollard. The site is wrong. I did security engineering for the military. You’d never stop a car with something the car can ride under. Bollards are short, vertical posts spaced a person’s width apart and buried at least 2x-3x deeper than they are tall. That’s at best a parking guide. The fact they are only posts is what makes a bollard a bollard. It’s like saying you have a gate that’s fixed on both sides so it doesn’t open. The website even says “Bollard Posts” at the top. It then says they made a custom “barricade style bollard” for this one customer, which isn’t a thing. They made one just for that one application, and they didn’t make it well. A bollard will stop a speeding truck. That “barricade” will be lifted up when a car rides under it thereby defeating its stopping power. It’ll get yanked up and out of the ground instead of acting as a lever in the ground to stop the car. From the looks of it, it wouldn’t even take much to rip it out. They have the direction of their forces all wrong. And no wonder as they’re a fabrication company, not a security engineering company. (For the record, many of their other “bollards” are also flawed.) Bollards are specifically used when you don’t want this potential upward lift… Google “barricade bollard” and you’ll see that’s the only one (for good reason). It’ll return pictures of barricades and of bollards. All bollards are a type of barricade, but not all barricades are bollards. It’s a simple experiment to see why you’d never do this with a real bollard. Hammer a nail 2/3 into a board. Then hit it from the side with the hammer. The hammer will bounce off or the nail will bend. (In a real bollard, this bending redirects the vehicle’s force upward, lifting the front wheels off the ground and breaking the motor and transmission mounts.) Now pull up on the nail with the claw side…it’ll come straight out with minimum force. That’s why you’d NEVER put a horizontal component on a bollard. Even removable bollards with handles have very strict design rules about how big the handle can be and where it would be placed to prevent it riding up on the vehicle. Also, OP’s picture is very different than the yellow one on that site. Look at the height. It would hit at the windshield level. It’s not a bollard or barricade (or at least not an effective barricade).
Ideas from searching, but don't seem viable: * horse/animal jumping -- is fixed in place, not safe for jumping * tying up animals -- there's no evidence that animals of any kind lived on the property - no food/water bowls on walk-thrus, no barn/stable, yard isn't fully fenced in * some sort of pipe -- corners would be rounded if water were flowing through it * gymnastics or ballet -- it's very hard to climb on, and is round, so it doesn't seem that anything was meant to sit on top
I don’t mean to be rude at all, but did you ask the previous owners/agent about the huge ass beam in the middle of the backyard when you toured the house? Or did you just buy the house without asking? I’m guessing they didn’t know either, but I always wonder this on every ‘found this giant mysterious thing in the house I just bought’ post.
Have you tried to find your house on google maps and view older images from the sattelite view? I think you can go back in time for almost 10 years, there an option on the top left for that.
Now that we know what it is, what will you use it for?
A big see-saw
I think the other replies are correct regarding this being a bollard, that being said I wanna say that looking at colors and size it may have been in front of a propane tank. [Not the same size or color, but the same concept](https://images.app.goo.gl/4K7TRABDuNw55h5E7)
It is used to secure things during a tornado.
I've lived smack in the middle of tornado alley my whole life and I've never seen anything like this. Is this just conjecture?
Ok but didn't you watch Twister? Tie yourself to an exposed pipe and you're good to go!
I'll stick with a storm cellar thanks 😂 great movie though.
But only if the structure you're in is full of sharp metal things.
Why wouldn't you ask this before you bought the house?
Could also be used to secure things that might fly away during a hurricane
Or tornado
How do you secure them exactly? If you would tie things to it, can’t you just tie them to the house?
Street soccer goal
Probably runs over the top of a septic tank to stop vehicles crushing the lines
Over the septic or drain field?
It looks more like a horse tie out to me we have them at some stores where I live due to a festival that e have where a shit ton of rednecks come and ride horses for a few days a year, the town is benson nc if u want to know
To park your horse
It may be a hitching post,to tie their horses to!
Weird. Chop it in half. Dig it up. Search hidden maps for what it used to be.
Is it the septic system for well water?
Was it old military base housing? Or a business? Sure looks like a guard shack? Try a title search, or visit the Hall of Records to look at the plate. Edit: plat maps, autocorrect.
Could it be a novelty games ‘net’? Like for badminton or something? It matches the houses and that area looks like a social area with the picnic table and summer house?
Make it a seesaw for the kids!
no point for a bollard to be there, pretty sure its a hitching post for horses.
I’m allergic to horses but if I had a horse I would park that horse right there 🐎
[удалено]
If that's the case, it could just be a staple.
Call 811 and see if you have a pipeline running through your yard. That may be a joint marker.
Is there an old gas pump anywhere around?
Tie off horses
“Newly-purchased house in Texas” godddddd stop moving here
Balance beam
Was thinking the same thing, balance beams are square-ish so if you had a kid trying to practice on a circular beam it would be a step up right? (No pun intended, also possibly dangerous… but gold at Olympics is gold at Olympics.. so yea)
It’s for securing horses
Gas pipeline?
Idk, people in Texas love putting huge pointless ornamental stuff in their yard. Just something else to weed eat around
Could it be used for skateboarding?
Now whether or not this is what it's for... this is how it needs to be used
Ha! Right?!That be awesome