Mailbox Design Challenge

Our mailboxes are pretty resiliant ,we generally attach a house/bungalow or similar structure.

one that can not be stolen or destroyed (ie: hit by a truck or baseball bat).

Let's see - Heavy metal (check)

Can't be moved by ordinary means (check)

Will fight back if disturbed (check)

This might be adaptable

I know it's tongue in cheek, but it's sorta like someone that really, really wants to break into your home - they are going to get in if they want to.....I've seen boxes made of 1/4" steel & welded just like a wood stove, destroyed out here....some people call it Fun

Growing up we had a few high school kids that would wreck mail boxes all the time. They kept breaking ours off at the ground. We put in a steel post made out of well casing. They just pulled it out with a tractor!

A friend of mine had a neighbor that kept getting his taken too. He rebuilt his out of a rail road tie as a post and a thick steel tube for the box. The county snow plow hit it one winter and broke the side wing blade right off!

Next spring they made every one with high strength mail boxes replace them with the cheap ones or pay a heavy fine. If you build a mail box good enough that no one will wreck the local powers that be will make you remove it!

With mail boxes just accept you will never win.

Besides all they seem to do is collect junk mail now anyways. Every thing I do thats of importance is online.

Hmmm it might be a good idea to have it supported by a spring. As for the box itself, does it have to be a box?

Every time I have to replace a mailbox, it costs me money, money I can't afford. It cost me $40 the last time. I live in a rural area and my house is about a 1/4 mile from the road. I checked with the postal service about it. They said they get about 2 calls a day about vandalized mailboxes. My next door neighbor has her mailbox built into a brick enclosure, but vandals just knocked the whole thing over. According to the post office, this is a federal matter, but rarely do they do anything about it. It seems that they would only get involved if the contents of the box was stolen. My present mailbox sits atop a railroad tie. Let's see how long that lasts.

Hi Ron,

Would it be acceptable (for you and the post office) to have a concrete/steel shell box plant in the ground. A little bit like a floor safe with a lid level with the ground.

It may be a little bit more inconvenient to bend down to pick up the mail, but it would not be readily visible to vandals as a target. It might also be worth attaching it to some long, driven post into the ground lest they want to dig it out and steal it.

Cheers, Bob

good unless it rains. soggy mail sucks.

Every house has its doors. This is a universal problem. Parents role to educate the younger generation's personality is very important to reduce this type if incidences. Value based education to be a good solution for the new generation.

In our place the mail boxes are kept in the post offices in a safe place with allotted post box numbers. This may be difficult in certain parts of the world but this may be a last option

havnet u guys heard about the new force field mail boxes?

geez...

The original USPS design was very good, but you wouldn't want the neighbors depositing and hoping for service.

But there was a guy trying to get rid of 1/2" inch plate in a thread....

Three or four large truck tires stacked up and filled with concrete and maybe a bit of rebar to line them up. Don't forget to have the mailbox mounting ready to stick into the wet concrete. Ideally dig a hole the tire ID as deep as you want and stack the tires above the hole. It'll take a big tractor to get that loose. You'll use about a yard of concrete or maybe a bit more if you dig the hole deep.

A neighbor up the road a ways in a fairly open public area has something along the same line; but he left the tires on the rims which he held together with long bolts and then put the mailbox mounting plate on top so you couldn't see or measure the lug hole pattern. Been there for as long as I can remember.

Ed Weldon

Had the same problem.

Got a post office box.

Not as convenient. But all the mail gets through now.

We like the kind built into the post office, they call it a post office box go figure...

We're rural too, get the mail about every three days same as we did when had a box next to the road, go figure...

How about one on a thick strong spring -
e.g. like a punch ball?

If they pull it, it bends, and if they hit it...
it will whack them back?

Grass lasts longer than a tree.

jt.

Looks good but, expensive and it could become a challenge for vandals. The base/pole may survive, but not the mailbox.

I built one, 18 inches of standard 12 inches id steel pipe with 1/4 inch plate welded on one end. A piece of 5 inches steel channel iron 12 inches long centered and welded along the pipe. A SS expanded metal tray that rests about 3 inches off of the id of the pipe. A fabricated hinge using a 1/2 inch bolt.

The lid was 1/4 inch plate with a welded 1/4 x 1.25 rolled flat bar rim welded on it to fit over the 12.75 inches od pipe. I put a lug for a spring in the pipe and attached it to the door so that when you open the dorr it stays open and when you close the door it stays closed (there is also a magnet holding it closed. Paint everthing with a good primer twice. I dug out a 15 inch dia x 3 feet deep hole put two bags of sakcrete in the botton and placed 6.5 feet x 4 inches schedule 80 pipe in it fille in most of the hole and topped it off with 6 inches of sakcrete. The mailbox channel iron was welded to the pipe with 7018 low hydrogen welbing rods and the paint was touched up later.

That mailbox has been the for 11 years (knock wood)

ps there are two 1/2 inch drain holes in the bottom and they are covered with screen. The ends of the channel iron were later capped with U foam (wasps).

The mailman cut it a little close but the mailbox was ok.

Mine's an old propane cylinder with a hinge welded on. Coupled with two upper and lower steel plates, two coil springs and a steel bar inbetween that not even the snowplow has managed to dislodge. Been that way since 95 and has taken multiple hits.

My neighbor had a mailbox vandal problem.

Emphasis on 'had'.

Withstand being hit by a truck? Well yes, it will cost around $5K.

When I was growing up, I had a neighbor friend who was a mechanic for a ready-mix concrete supplier, and his mailbox was the routine target of some local teens who had a pick-up truck with a stout brush guard across the front - they would simply mow it down.

He took several heavy coil springs, welded them together, and cast them into a concrete base, using an old 'flying saucer' snow slider as the form. He made the mailbox out of steel plate so that it would not get smashed. On one of their outings, the truck-driving mailbox wreckers hit his mailbox dead center and, when the whole assembly rolled like a sand-weighted floor punching bag, the base took out the truck's oil pan. All my friend had to do was walk a few hundred feet down the road and beat the bejesus out of the boys. That series of events wound up his mailbox demolition woes.

Think a retractable pole with box attached, configured with proximity sensor to extend when a vehicle stops, then retract after vehicle departs.

Or create a turn-out off the driven part of roadway to facilitate a safe zone to mount the mail box.

Use a steel pipe about 3' long and 8" diameter.

Don't attach any box attop, use one end as a compartment.

Install it upwards on a heavy spring coil That is recessed on a concrete well.

Since it is just a round pole, when they hook it and pull it it will just bend 'till the cable releases. If they hit with a truck it will only lay to ground 'till the truck passes by.

Yahlasit

It sounds like a motion sensor video camera aimed at the mail box is giong to be the best and cheapest solution. Be sure to aim it for a view of the license plate number.