The mailbox which is attached to our house is inadequate for several
reasons.  However, my search for a new mailbox has been fruitless as yet.

It appears that there are basically two kinds of mailboxes on the market:
"rural style" and "city style".

A "rural style" mailbox is usually mounted on a post beside the road. 
They're so ubiquitous that it's hardly necessary to describe it: a long
metal or plastic box, rounded on top like a Quonset hut.  One end is the
"door," hinged on the bottom edge.  A "flag" on the right side serves to
announce outgoing mail for pickup.  It is simple, functional, roomy,
weathertight, durable, and cheap: the basic model is available for less
than $5 at Home Depot (among other places).

A "city style" mailbox, like the one we already have, is intended to be
mounted on the wall of a house.  These are much more varied than the rural
mailboxes, but there are certain common elements.  The space in the
mailbox is extremely cramped, and only the more expensive versions have
enough room for a magazine, let alone multiple magazines or catalogs.  A
couple of hooks are provided below the mailbox so that magazines can be
rolled up and left to sit loosely, to be blown away by the wind or soaked
by rain.  The lid is floppy, with poor quality hinges, and the box is not
weathertight even when the lid is closed.  Very often there is some cheap
and brittle plastic ornament attached to the front.  On top of all these
functional problems, "city style" mailboxes cost considerably more than
the rural version.

The manufacturers of mailboxes apparently assume that -- compared to rural
folks -- city people have a lot more money to spend on mailboxes, yet get
much less mail.

(Well, okay, really, the rural folks have the benefit of a widely accepted
national standard.)

The last time I replaced a mailbox was about fifteen years ago, on a
rental house in East Lansing.  I took down the "city style" mailbox, which
was in extremely poor condition, and simply attached a "rural style"
mailbox to the house in its place.  The mailbox was to the right of the
door, so I mounted the mailbox with one long side toward the house, with
the mailbox door on the left end.  I probably used some kind of mounting
bracket, but I forget the details.  Whatever I did, it worked extremely
well, and the mailbox is still in use at that address.

I'd like to do approximately the same thing again.  Unfortunately, there
is an orientation problem.  Our current mailbox is to the LEFT of the
front door.  If a rural style mailbox were to be attached there, the flag
would be toward the wall, OR the opening would be away from the door --
neither of those would be acceptable.

Alternatively, the mailbox could be attached to the RIGHT of the door, but
that would make it impossible to simply reach out and retrieve mail, since
the door opens on the left.  Moreover, removing the old mailbox without
covering the space with a new one might leave an ugly scar on the side of
the house.

The mailbox could be attached with the non-door end to the wall,
protruding outward from the house like a locomotive leaving a tunnel, but
that would look a little odd, and would need some kind of structure to
physically support it. 

I suppose we could put up a post near the door and install a rural style
mailbox the traditional way.  However, because we have a large concrete
"stoop" in front of the entrance, we would either have to drill in
concrete, or settle for the mailbox being much further away from the front
door. 

Alternatively, a city style mailbox that has the positive attributes of a
rural mailbox would be good, but I have never found one.

Any thoughts on how to solve this problem?

47 responses total.

I've always like the slit-in-the-door style "box" myself.
In brass they look quite nice and when you go out of town
you don't need to have anyone pick up your mail it just
collects on the floor, inside.

I don't see those much on newer homes though.  Maybe 
they don't make them anymore, or they allow too much heat
to escape, or they are a security risk.  Don't know.
But I sure liked having one.

You could build one yourself.  I don't imagine such a thing would be all 
that difficult.  

        i'd say you should just *give up*

        Use pine.

        If I were tackling your problem, I'd remind myself of the concrete
mount bolts you can get from a quality hardware store. you drill a hole in
the concrete, (with a hammer drill and mortar bit: rentable) and find somebody
to fabricate a mount for a wood or steel post. Unfortuneately, I know of
nobody on Grex (or M-net) with the skills, or at least neccessary tools.

        I've DONE things like that, but having access to the tools at thiws
point is highly improbable.

Building a mailbox out of pine? That's going to be a pretty sturdy 
mailbox.  

(or did resp:4 refer to the email program that is installed on many 
many many UNIX systems, including Grex?)

When I first wrote #0, I started by saying "This is not a Unix problem."
Maybe I was too hasty in deleting that line.

You don't need a flag on the city style mailbox, so can't you just use the
rural style box without the flag?  We have the slit-in-the-door type installed
in the door to a locked, glassed-in, unheated porch.  The flag is presumably
something that people can see from the door at a distance from the mailbox,
which is on the road in rural areas where mail carriers do not walk.  You put
the flag up if you want the carrier to pick up some mail.  You don't need a
flag in the city.

Two point:
1. A rural box is at the roadside and the postperson can pick up mail
and deliver mail without leaving the mailtruck. The flag is to tell
the mailperson that you have mail to go in case there is none to deliver.

2. A town box is not for putting out mail, only for receiving it, since
the mailperson would have to come to the door to collect mail even if
there is none to deliver, and that would slow things down greatly. If
you have had mail picked up from a rural box attached to a house, it
was an independent curtesy of the mailperson, and not required, and
probably only done if you were receiving mail.

If you think the mailperson at the new place would be willing to
pay any attention to the flag - add one on the other side of the
box.

I've been looking for a respectable wall-mount mailbox too.  Doing a web
search for "mailboxes" is a bit tricky.  Most of what I found confirms Larry's
(and my) previous experience in looking for mailboxes.
  http://www.mailboxsolutions.com/wallmnt.html
     A number of rather nice mailboxes, ranging in price from $80 to $260.
     Rather pricey for a simple box.
  http://shop.toohome.com/html/cats/category_407.asp
     Proves mailslots can still be bought for plausible prices.  The box
     here is $50 and only 5" wide.
  http://www.dbcity.com/mailbox/Wallmoun.htm
     At the top of this page is a plain rectangular aluminum box, only $155.
     Of course, that's the bottom of the line.
  http://www.floweringart.com/
     Custom hand-painted mailboxes for only $50.  Claims to offer wall mounts
     but none pictured.  Hard to tell if they are of a useful size.  Might
     not be bad if you like flowers.
  http://www.mailboxnet.com/wall4.html
     Some of the boxes here are almost borderline sane - but only relatively
     speaking.  The Swedish ones are only $50, 9x14x4" and perfectly sensible
     except for the Swedish Post emblems.
  http://www.americanmailbox.com/resentel.htm
     Aside from being a bit too small, these look almost decent for $58.
  http://www.gardenfantasy.com/cat/Products/mainhtml/mailboxes.htm
     $57 for a pretty painted wooden box of a reasonable size.
OK, Netscape croaked (got into a mode where it loads pages (you can see the
HTML with "View Source") but can't be bothered to display them - just gives
a blank screen - fah!).  But I think Tim had the right idea:  pine.  Get
some hunks of wood and a few inches of piano hinge, and it should be easy
to build a decent mailbox for a few bucks.  Wish I had time.

Rane slipped in.  We always get mail.  If we didn't Tom would probably knock
on the door to tell us we weren't getting mail today, because he knows how
much Valerie would miss getting mail.  He's always happy to pick up mail from
us, but I do think that is a courtesy.  He seems to do several nice things
not required by postal service policy.

Mail carriers routinely pick up outgoing mail from city delivery points.
It *is* part of their function.

I am not especially concerned about this.  Given a choice, I'd rather take
the outgoing mail to the post office myself.  However, Janice feels
differently about this, and routinely leaves outgoing mail for the mail
carrier to pick up.

I don't really care if the mailbox has a flag or not.  The problem with
the flag on the standard rural mailbox is that the flag mechanism tends to
be welded on, and the presence of the flag makes it awkward to mount the
box against the wall.

So put some spacers in and mount the mailbox a few inches away from the
wall.  You probably ought to do this anyways to give rain & snow a place
to go.

Hmmm, consulting a copy of the Domestic Mail Manual (a 1987 edition,
admittedly), it appears that Rane is right and I am wrong about the
collection of mail from rural boxes.

Section 152.23: "Mail on which postage has been paid may be deposited for
collection in mailboxes on rural routes."  There is no parallel section
for city delivery. 

Section 156.4 provides that rural customers can leave money in their
boxes to pay for postage.

Curiously, the chapter on City Delivery does not offer the type of
walk-up-to-the-door service which our house and Jan's house both receive. 
The only options for residential housing are Curbside (i.e., like a rural
route), Sidewalk (same thing but next to the public sidewalk) or Central
(a whole lot of mailboxes together in the middle of the housing
development).

I suppose those of us with old-fashioned service are all continued under
155.13, which states that "Nothing in this part shall be interpreted to
require any changes in any city delivery service which was initiated under
prior city delivery regulations."

I don't know if the DMM is on the Web yet or not.  I just had this
13-year-old paper copy handy.

Re 13.  Installing the mailbox far enough away from the wall that there's
room for the flag mechanism would require the creation of some kind of
complicated structure to support it.

A rural style mailbox has vertical flanges around the bottom with holes
for nails or screws to attach it.  There isn't any way to attach "spacers"
to the sides, absent some kind of metal drill to puncture the steel.

Hardly "complicated". Two pieces of wood longer than the height of the box
can be screwed to the box, and then to the wall. Making a hole in metal
with a drill is a common operation and is not difficult. 

Maybe a common operation if you have professional tools.

Interesting that mail pick-up in the city is not required.  I assume this is
because it's presumably a short drive to the nearest drop box.  My parents'
has always been picked up from their house anyway, but I did notice this
summer that postal workers won't pick up outgoing mail from apartment
central mailboxes.  My parents live in town but have a "rural-style" mailbox
on a post set next to the porch.

Larry, you should look at our mailbox, which I would describe as
"a trough with a cover."  It's roughly the same volume as a "rural"
mailbox, but it has a hinged lid on the top instead of the side.  
Magazines, oodles of catalogs and small mail order packages go into 
it just fine.

Of course I have no idea where it came from; I'm pretty sure it was 
in place when we moved in.

There's nothing hard about drilling holes in ordinary sheet metal.
Decide where you want the hole.  Mark the spot.  Put a dent there with a
hammer & nail.  Place a piece of scrap lumber behind the hole, and drill
through.  The dent is to keep the bit from "wandering" before it digs
in.  The scrap lumber is to make sure metal filings don't curl around
and uglify the exit side of the hole.  You can skip both if you aren't
concerned about appearance, neatness or accuracy.

If you don't want to make holes in the side of the box, you could also
rig up a fairly simple "shelf" for the box to sit on.  All you'd need
for that are your vertical bits of wood (to attach to the house), some
triangular shaped blocks (to go from vertical to horizontal), and a
sheet of plywood, approximately the size of the mailbox.  Flathead
screws can be used to attach the triangular blocks to the shelf & its
supports -- and you'll need to drill a pilot hole approximately the
diameter of the inside of the screw threads where you want the screws to
go.  Then it's just muscle power (or a power screw driver) to put it all
together, and some paint to protect it from the elements.  The
triangular bits can be made simply by sawing through regular lumber at
an angle.

Is there some reason that the rural box has to be installed with the flat side
down, rather than up, or against the house?  Scott, should we link this to
DIY?  (I forgot how).  

Hm, yeah, actually I think "dwellings" would be a good conference too. 
Anyway, I'll link it.

My parents have a mailbox much like krj describes.

I checked the rural mailboxes (3) in front of our house (our's, and
those of two neighbors), and all three have removable flag brackets.
They are held on with two machine screws (nuts inside), one screw
also being the pivot for the flag. So, you don't need standoffs. 

I am amused by polygon calling a drill a "professional tool". K-Mart has
them.

Moreover, if he owns a home he'll need one sooner or later regardless.

He is welcome to borrow one of Jim's drills, or bring over the mailbox to be
drilled.  We got our mail slot cheap at Fingerle Lumber.

Re 24.  I have a drill that works for wood.  Drilling through concrete
or steel, I thought, was a different matter.

Sheet steel is fairly soft & thin.  Ordinary drill bits should work
fine.
        (If you were a professional, you'd probably have a preference
        between "carbon" and "high speed steel" for this, and that
        preference would give you the neater appearance and/or least
        cost.  You or I will probably lose the drill bit first before it
        wears out, and won't ever remember how much it cost, and the
        screw will cover up any bit of ugliness that even the mailman
        won't see because it's dark inside there.  Or if it's too ugly
        for the screw to cover up or grip, a flat metal washer will save
        the day.)
That ordinary drill bit won't cut as quickly as through wood, but
because it's so thin, it will still go through in very little time.  If
you were drilling through something thicker, you'd probably want to
squirt oil on it (for cooling), and if it were harder, you might need a
special bit.  Concrete is something else entirely, and yes, you want
different stuff there (an ordinary drill bit would probably not cut real
well, and go dull pretty fast.)

I'm partial to balanced Makita and Dewalt cordlesses for normal screw-based
applications, but any drilling requires heavier equipment.  My dad owns a
Craftsman corded drill that predates my birth that still has some serious
kick.

You can get through sheet metal with a standard (metal) drill bit under
1/4" quite easily with a *hand* drill. 

There are different bits for wood in larger sizes, and whether it is
to be used with a hand brace or a power drill. Metal and wood drills
are the same in the smaller sizes. Concrete bits have tungsten carbide
pieces and are lousy on wood. 

In the event Larry's mailbox has any usual properties, I can suggest the
following additional hole cutting information:

For larger holes in metal, they make punches - generally these involve
drilling a small pilot hole, fitting the punch through the hole, then
screwing the halves of the punch together until it cuts through.  For
even larger holes than this, it's common to use a drill or punch to make
several smaller holes, then use a saw or tin snips to cut the larger
hole out.

For very thick metal, an oxy-acetylene torch, electric arc, or laser can
be used to melt a hole through metal.  The metal involved is vaporized,
and most of it probably ends up combining with oxygen in the air before
solidifying.  It's generally best to cut holes of this size first
*before* painting, as the metal near the hole will have gotten very hot
and may be covered with splatters or dust of slag or ash.

For metal such as gold, where even tiny scraps are worth significant
sums of money, elaborate care is used to recover all the scraps.  In
some cases, this is a signficant source of income for the jeweler.

Personally, I doubt Larry's mailbox will be made of 1/4" thick sheet
steel, solid gold, or that he plans to attach it to his house with 2"
diameter carriage bolts.  However, I'll be very interested in his
progress if any of these are true.  The 2" carriage bolts, at least,
will have the interesting honor of being way stronger than either the
mailbox or the house.  This may be useful if his mailbox is actually
made of gold.

Rural mailboxes are not cheap.  At least not the ones that stand up to be
repeatedly beat up by bats, 2X4's or whatever else.  The person who last got
after ours even stopped after knocking it off it's base and stomped on it!
There were boot prints all over it.  I had mounted it with only a couple of
screws so that it would fly off instead of collapsing.  I had not anticipated
having it stomped on.  I took it inside, beat it back into functionality with
a ballpeen hammer and remounted it with a same old two screws.  It was let
alone after that.  Several months later, after receiving 29 catalogs in one
day after ordering some books on Amazon.com, we decided to upgrade to a larger
box and payed $27 for a Rubbermaid mailbox from Meijer.  They had bigger boxes
for even more money.  Not cheap in my book.  We'll see how it holds up to
roadside beatings and WCRC snowplowing.  The plow goes by at about 40 MPH and
I've seen many a mailbox, post and all, leveled by the wake.

Now, about your urban mailbox problems:  How about removing the flag and
remounting it on the other side of a rural box?  Rubbermaid also (use to)
makes a nice, big, urban box with a nice fitting cover and a protected slot
in front to hold outgoing mail.  I put one up at our old house in Ann Arbor
and we were very happy with it and it even looked decent.  I'm not too sure
about mail slots.  Mail piled up in front of the door when I come in loaded
down with shopping isn't ideal.  It's also handy for things like the old hose
prank ;-)

$27 for a large post-mount box, vs $50 to $200 for a small wall-mount box is
cheap in my book.

Indeed, but item 0 said: "the basic model is available for less than $5 at
Home Depot (among other places)."  Though I have to admit, our first
mailbox was free as it was a gift from a neighbor.

Try Kiwanis or Reuse Center for a used mailbox.

re resp:21

The rural boxes are usually mounted flat side down because rainwater 
won't significantly collect on a convex surface.

This response has been erased.

once on a time all rural mailboxes had to be USPD approve, you couldn't make
one yourself.  this has probably changed but that is why you still see custom
made mailbox enclosures with an old fashioned metal mailbox hidden in it. 
>^.^<

The 38.  The Domestic Mail Manual explicitly allows people to make their
own rural mailboxes.

- Backtalk version 1.3.30 - Copyright 1996-2006, Jan Wolter and Steve Weiss