I fixed the diagonal brace on my wooden gate from the top hinge down just to keep it square: by the second winter, hearing it scrape the path, I understood which way round it should have gone
A wooden gate’s diagonal brace must run from the bottom hinge to the top latch—not the other way. One DIYer’s backwards installation seemed fine for a year, until gravity and winter revealed the structural flaw through an unmistakable scraping sound.