Ranch/homested powered tamper for posts?

[BHD]

I trued my air hammer tamper today been setting some more corral posts,
Using an Ingersoll Rand air hammer,

it is working better or better had hoped for, it is actually packing the back fill better than I was getting with the manual tamping bar, and reasonably fast.

 

[EddieWalker]

I didn't quite understand why concrete wasn't used around the posts. Tamping dirt, no matter how good or powerful you do it will never make that fill dirt as solid as the undisturbed soil. Adding concrete will lock the post into position better then dirt ever will, it's not even close. For the cost to buy or build a tamper, when you are done, you will still have a weaker post then if you had used concrete. In order to make sure the post doesn't rot out, the concrete must come up the post higher then the surrounding dirt. For decorative wood posts I cut sonotubes and use them as a form to get the concrete above grade. For regular posts in the ground, I taper the concrete up the post to form a cone, or a slope to shed water. Rust on metal posts and rot on wooden posts happens right at grade. That one inch where it comes out of the ground is where it starts every time. If you can keep that part dry, there is no telling how long a post can last.

 

[BHD]

In the hundreds probably more than a thousand of posts I have set over the years, been doing this for many, many, years, probably put in over a hundred + a year, normally
have hardly ever used concrete, some is cost,
but I have never had problems with tamping back fill,
I think I have only set about three in concrete, and was never very impressed with the concrete, when it comes time to replace them, and in some instances it did not hold any better than the soil,

I have never seen the power company use concrete, around there poles, just earth back fill,

 

[EddieWalker]

While I can't claim to have installed as many posts as you have, I will say that I tamp most of my posts with the dirt. But I drill a 12 inch hole and I have plenty of room to tamp the dirt around the post as I fill it back up. For more strength in my corners, gates and stand alone posts, I use concrete. For really tight clearances, I also use concrete because it is impossible to tamp dirt with only an inch or two of clearance between the post and the sides of the hole.

Around here, the guys who install power poles use a hydraulic tamper, which is probably what this thread is all about. Trying to find something like that, but for a lot less money. My thought is that it's not possible to find something that will work as well as a hydraulic tamper that works for a significant savings.

 

[two_bit_score]

A 'curved head tamping bar' costs about $99

http://www.hilineco.com/docs/2014_C...alog - p225-231 - Digging & Pole Handling.pdf

I use a 12 inch auger so i have plenty of room but I still use a sack of crete when warranted..



TBS

 

[STx]

I've been kicking around the idea of building a building with rammed earth walls. Part of that was looking for an automatic tamper, there are a bunch of air powered tools for $600 - $1200 out there, which really isn't that bad. What's got me hung up though, is that they require 30CFM or more of air to operate, which puts you into a $3,000 or more compressor. Since this would be built where there isn't existing power, I'd need a diesel powered unit (can't find them that big with gas engines), which gets me over $5,000.

I think I'm going to use compressed earth blocks instead. It'll be a lot more labor intensive but, the block machine is only about $1200. If you come up with a cost effective way to automatically tamp, I'd be all over it.

 

[r porter]

ok, i have used sackrete with great success. but the cost is just a little too much. for most jobs i drive posts in with a shaver driver and then forget them.

recently i had a pair of posts to in stall and did not feel like hooking up the driver and since sand is free here i packed sand around the post [ poured it in and left it] so far the post is as sturdy as if sackrete was used.

the fire dept. does the same for flag poles- even 50 footers and the pole is very hard to remove.