Mailbox for busy street

[fourjeepin]

Anyone ever built a rotating mailbox? Been trying to figure out how to do this as I bought a house on a busy street. One of my neighbors has a plastic double ended box, but it looks cheap and is the smaller variety of box.

 

[R-132 Fan]

Not a rotating mailbox, but I spliced two mailboxes together. My father had arthritus in his feet and couldn't step off the curb to get the mail out of his mailbox at the edge of the road.
I just bought a second mailbox like his and cut about three inches off the end of the donar mailbox that had the opening flap on it. I cut the blind end off the first box and riveted the second box to the first. I used a backup strip at the joint with some silicone sealant on the backup strip right at the joint. It worked well for many years and still may be in use.

 

[neonnblack]

with a lazy susan, like the ones that they use on bar stools.

 

[Ign]

I think a double ended mailbox is your best bet. But you can do what we do for snow plows and Louisville sluggers: post (pipe or tube) is cut at an angle, usually the steeper the better. Then sleeve ID of post at the cut, it'll naturally settle back to where the angles match, which should of course be the position facing the street.

 

[kbs2244]

I have never liked the spinning ones.
You need to put some kind of latch to keep them from spinning away from the carrier in the wind.
The double ended idea just seemed like a simpler way to do it.

 

[Milton Shaw]

My dad had one with 2" pipe post, with a small v cut in the top. The mail box(large rural type) had a 2 1/4 inch pipe with a hardened thru bolt welded near the top of the pipe. It would swivel to get the mail and go back to street and stay there. No problems with it for over 30 years.

 

[fourjeepin]

Ign - I like the sleeve idea. And Milton's v-notch. Both easier than some of the other ideas I had. I prefer this to the double ended as you can't have a standard looking post; just a box on a pole. Though the double ended is easier to use.

I have a ten foot piece of 4" OD square tubing from a basketball goal I removed that is ready to be cut and welded into something. Might as well be a new mail box post.

 

[Wastedwagesracing]

These a pretty slick, a bit on the pricey side.

http://www.returntocentermailbox.com/

 

[Kevin54]

One word of advice to ones that have aging parents that CANNOT make it to the street for their mail. Talk to your local Postmaster. The Post Office will accommodate the elderly. Everyone one my parents street including my parents had mailboxes out in the street. For my parents to get to the mail they had to go down a couple of steps to get to the driveway, then out to the box. My mom fell on time and laid there about 30 minutes before a neighbor driving by saw her. I spoke with the Postmaster and that is when he told me that they will make accommodations for the elderly. My parents had the mailbox on their porch in a couple of days.

 

[Case IH]

My mailbox swivels, pipe goes about 6-8ft down then another L shaped pipe fits inside the other pipe. and there is a bolt through the L shaped pipe to keep it from sliding too deep into the tube, and there are 2 grooves in the tube that the bolt rests in to prevent unwanted spinning. Works great in the winter cause the plows just spin it instead of smashing it

 

[jamesincarl]

I think a double ended mailbox will be very much useful to you...