Why Dig Post Holes????
 

I was just looking over Cedar Post.What I'm wanting to know is why talk about digging Post Holes??

We never dug any Post Holes other than Corner Post if we put in Wood ones,aroung here it is easier to put up Rock Post.What we always did with Wood Post was punch out a hole with a Rock Bar,then set the Post in there and start driving it in with a Post Maul,kind of like driving a Nail.

Always had good tight post.

big rockpile

You telling us you drove wood posts through all them rocks with a maul? Did you have Babe the Blue Ox to haul the maul down to the next post?

Built Fence all over this area never dug a hole for a line post.Heck even if you can put a little space in between rocks you can still drive in a solid post :D .Ofcourse now days you just put Steel Post in.

Ofcourse back in my younger days when I weighed 145 pounds,washer board stomach,I could swing a bad Maul.

big rockpile

Same here in peat ground, but dad spent as long putting the peak on the posts with the tractor buzz saw as we would have with a post auger.

--->Paul

Growing up that was how we set cedar posts. Used a heavy bar to start a hole and then drove them in from there. They always set up pretty solid.

Eric

:) Why? Because conditions vary across the country, that's why. Duhhhh. You might live on a rock pile farm but many locations never saw a rock. Some are bottom land like the bayous, others are mostly sand, some have lots of rain and clay soil. So, that's why many places need to have post holes for solid fencing to keep in the stock. It's a big country! LOL LQ

D-7 with a steel plate
 

Posts should be crammed into the ground with a big loader bucket full of gravel or better yet with the blade of a D-7 CAT, or bigger if you got it, with a 1/4 inch or bigger steel plate welded on the side. You weld just at the right height when the blade is on the ground.

Then you just drop the blade to the ground or wherever - all the same height and look real good and make a good sight line. You can cram in some real big posts that way. It goes real quick.

Well they should be strong and pretty big so they are not all whippy and spindly and break. Other than having to use good sized heavy duty treated posts, I think this is the best and quickest way to make lots of fence.

If you want some special treatment at the corners and gate, then drill in with a 12 inch diameter aguer, and set with good small gravel or road "mulch" or cement, like I did with my new double 16' wide gates for equipment entry to our place.

http://abceltd.com/pics/Web/NewGatesSmall.jpg

Alex

Well Little Quacker I lived in the Bayou and in the Mountains and in the River Bottoms,never had a problem banging a post in.Soft ground just have to bang it in a little deeper.

big rockpile

Having spent all my life in 'vineyard country' (Finger Lakes, NY), I was practically an adult before I learned that an awful lot of people in the rest of the country believe that you have to dig a hole to set a post. I've driven literally thousands of posts. We have thousands of acres of vineyards here, in all kinds of soil, and the vast majority of the posts in them were driven, not augered. I'm reasonably confident that this is also the case in California, Canada, and Austrailia, but I don't want to hazard a guess about Europe.

(Trivia - an acre of 'standard' vineyard here in NY has about 200 posts and almost a mile of trellis.)

Do you sharpen and end of the post first? We dug post holes last year and have to do some more this year.

Yelp sharpen them to a point,punch your hole out with Rock Bar,get a BIG Post Maul,and start driving it in.helps if you got someone to hold it steady until you get it started,but if you miss and hit them :eek: your probably on your own :( :haha: .It always helped me get a rythem going,put them in the ground in no time.

big rockpile

:) Aha!!!! I see the problem now!!! We used only railroad ties for fencing and as hog pens(laying on their sides). So, dug the holes by hand and tamped them in.

I am glad that these days I only need rebar! LOL

LQ

Rock Bar? Is this something I make or buy? Thank though for the info, I will pass it on to my husband! A post maul..... like a large post pounder that you use for steel posts?

we had a danuser post driver borrowed from my cousin and drove over 1000 post that year its just that so many areas the tractor will not go and i never had much luck driving by hand always just buggered up the post top unless it was really soft ground . a rock bar is similar to a spud bar but with a hardened chisle point, i have several. another reason i have been digging some is the post are out of strait and if the hole is dug right i can make it look like a strait one from the ground up ,thats the trouble with some of the hedge post ,some of the old timers would use a broad axe and adze till you had no clue that it started as a crooked post.

We are looking into a "King Hitter" ( http://www.wikco.com/khfpd2.html ) for driving all our posts into the ground. I visited a dealer a couple of weeks ago and I was impressed with the ability it had to drive a post in to rocky ground. It's a little spendy (close to $9K) for the hitter plus the rock spike, but I know I could get my money back out of it when I'm finished with all my fencing. This will save me time if I were to do this on my own or money from having to hire a company to come in and install the fence. This can be done as a two man/woman :D operation!

No rocks at all here. Heavy clay soil. Dunno if you could smoosh them in.

Looks good
 

Your post pounder looks good.

The CAT with a plate welded to the blade at the right height is the easiest. Just lower the blade. Then the posts are all at the right height. Will go into any thing.

Seems to me it would be easier to dig the hole, drop in the post, tamp the dirt then move on to the next one. No axe to sharpen the post, no rock or anyother kind of bar, no maul, just the post hole digger.
Robert (aka greenhart)

Well. actually, no. It would be a good idea, but mostly people put down 12" or 15" posts as the strainer posts (say corners and gateposts), and steel posts in between (we call them star pickets - three-cornered in cross-section - like the Mercedes star - but you may call them T-posts. Actually, what ARE T-posts?)

Anyway, in Australia for animal fences they tend to use steel for perimeter fences, put the corner posts in the hard way. I must admit all the grape-vine fences I've seen go in are on 3" wooden stakes, so I suppose they do do it that way when they don't have to withstand animals charging them.

Tee post description here http://www.chs.com/teeposts.html

most of the ones used around here are the studded version.

Truth being around here it use to be all Wood Post but People burn the woods to open it up for Pasture.So if you don't rake away from your fence you lose your post.

Me I don't have to worry about it I put in T Post and Rock Corner Post,won't Rot or Burn.Around here T Post are $2 apiece.And my Fence is Goat,Hog tight.

Cattle are easy! I have a Neighbor that don't have a post one,he uses Barb Wire,tacks it to Trees going through the woods,if he comes to a spot there isn't a close tree he put a couple Stays in.

big rockpile

I see. More steel, so more expensive, than star pickets, which in cross-section just look like a letter "Y".

Put in Posts
 

A nice straight strong three or four wire fence all around your property is a great thing, and looks nice.

I don't think stringing wire on trees is much of a good thing to do. I guess if you have to then you have. OK, its your (their) land so you can make a fence how you want. I wouldn't do it that way. Well maybe at the odd tree that was not taken from the fence line before I started, and was right in the way.

Here we use wooden posts. Treated if we can afford it, or tammarck, or whatever if we can't.

What was the queston anyway?

Really, why talk about it or do it? Digging is a bear.

Alex

I just read this thread. I never knew that there was another way to put up fence other than sharpen a post and drive it in! I've put in fence that way in gravel, clay, and rocky soil.

Huh, you learn something new everyday.

Stacy in NY

I live in the eastern mountains of PA. Here you could drive a post in by hitting the top about 3-6 inches. We have clay and shale mixed with the odd large stone......15-16 inches across. if you don't dig you don't get a fence. Would be nice to do it that way tho.