Yard Craft Concord Lantern Post - Durable Outdoor Light Stand

The Owner's Insights on the Concord

The first thing to know about this heavy duty outdoor lamp post is what it is made of, because the photographs fool almost everybody. It looks like a painted wooden post standing at the end of a driveway. It is cellular PVC vinyl, and that is the whole reason to buy it.

A wooden lamp post gets two or three good years before the base starts going soft where it meets the ground. That is where they always fail, and no amount of paint stops it. This one cannot rot, and it never needs painting.

The Concord is the wide one in the range, 7½ inches square against 5½ on the others. At the end of a long driveway or against a big house, the narrow posts look like a stick pushed into the lawn. This one has enough presence to read properly from the road.

The honest part: what arrives is a sleeve, not a complete light. You supply the wooden core, the concrete and the lantern. More on that below, because it is the thing people miss.

Why You'll Love the Concord

• Cellular PVC vinyl, not wood. It cannot rot at the ground line, which is the exact place every wooden post you have owned has failed.
• Never needs painting. The color runs through the material, so a scuff does not show a different color underneath it.
• 7½ inches square and 76 inches tall. Wide enough to hold its own at the end of a driveway rather than disappearing into the landscaping.
• Amish built in Lancaster County. Hand assembled in Pennsylvania by a working shop, not molded in a factory overseas.
• Delivery is free and included. No freight invoice lands afterwards and nothing is added at checkout.
• Touch-up kit comes in the box. A small thing, but it means the scratch from the shovel on install day gets fixed the same afternoon.

Why You Should Consider a YardCraft Lamp Post

YardCraft is an Amish workshop in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, building outdoor structures and decor by hand. They work almost entirely in cellular PVC and treated wood, and they publish real dimensions and real parts lists rather than marketing language. For a post that has to stand out in weather for twenty years, the material choice is the whole product, and they made the right one.

Why a Heavy Duty Outdoor Lamp Post Outlasts a Wooden One

Every wooden lamp post fails in the same place, and it is always the bottom six inches. Water wicks up from the soil, the timber stays damp behind the paint, and the rot works outward from the inside where you cannot see it. By the time the post leans, it has been going for a year.

Cellular PVC has no grain and no fiber for water to travel along, so the ground line stops being the weak point. It is the same material used for exterior trim on houses, chosen for exactly this reason.

The practical difference is what you do in year three. With wood, you are scraping and repainting a post at the end of the driveway in the rain. With this, you are not doing anything at all.

What You Need Before It Arrives

Read this part twice. The Concord is a sleeve that slides over a wooden post you set in the ground, and three things you will need are not in the box.

• An 8 foot pressure treated 4x4. This is the structural core and the vinyl goes over it. Around $25 at any lumber yard.
• Concrete. To set the 4x4 properly. Two or three bags, depending on how deep your frost line runs.
• A lantern. The post has a 3 inch mount at the top and no light fitting of its own, so you choose the lantern separately.

What does come in the box: the post itself, the decorative cap, the screws, and a touch-up kit.

None of this is difficult, but finding out on a Saturday morning that you are short a 4x4 and three bags of concrete costs you the weekend. Buy them at the same time. If you want us to check the list before you order, call or text 1 800 914 0074 or 352 274 6387. Texting is fine.

Concord Lamp Post Specifications

Wiring: hardwired, solar, or neither

The Concord is a post, so the wiring question is really a lantern question. If you want a hardwired outdoor lamp post, the cable runs up inside the 4x4 before the sleeve goes on, and that is far easier on install day than afterwards.

Plan the trench and the conduit at the same time you dig the footing. Running power to a post already set in concrete means digging the whole thing up again.

If you would rather skip the electrician entirely, a solar or battery lantern mounts the same way and needs nothing run out to it. On a driveway marker that nobody is reading by, solar is usually the sensible call.

Installing it

Dig below your local frost line, set the 4x4 in concrete, and let it cure properly before you go any further. Then slide the sleeve over it, level it, and fix it with the supplied screws using a 3/16 inch bit.

Two people makes this much easier than one, mostly for holding it plumb while the screws go in. A post half a degree out is invisible on install day and impossible to unsee for the next decade.

Delivery and lead time

Delivery is free and included in the price. Nothing is added at checkout and no freight invoice follows afterwards.

Yard Craft has been running 1 to 2 weeks on these, which is quick for something built by hand. That is an average and not a promise. Call or text 1 800 914 0074 or 352 274 6387 for today's real number rather than the one that is easier to sell.

It arrives as a long parcel rather than on a pallet, so there is no forklift and no appointment to arrange. Check it over when it lands, because damage in transit is straightforward to put right if it is reported early.

Who this is not for

Anyone expecting a working light out of the box, because there is no lantern and no wiring in it. Anyone who genuinely wants real wood and is happy to repaint it every few years. And anyone with a short driveway or a narrow frontage, where the 5½ inch Frankfort or Lincoln will look better than this one. A post too big for its setting reads as a mistake.

If you are not sure which size suits your frontage, call us before you order rather than after. We would far rather answer the question first.

The rest of the range

The lanterns are sold separately so you can match the fitting to the house rather than take whatever came bundled. Browse the full Yard Craft range for lanterns, mailbox posts and the rest of the Amish built outdoor decor.

Found it cheaper somewhere else? Tell us and we will beat the price. Returns are free.

Prefer to pay by bank transfer? Save 3% on this item. Call 1 800 914 0074 or 352 274 6387, or email sales@optimaloutdooroasis.com, and we'll send you an invoice with 3% off. The discount applies to the product price.