What size auger for my post hole digger?

[Big Bri]

i owned a fence company for a few years and we used 8" for 4x4 and 12" for 6x6.

 

[Big Bri]

got to thinking about this more . . . draw a 9" circle and them put a 6" square in it, you will see that you won't have that much room from the corner of the square to the edge of the circle. now if you are off just an inch when you drill or if your drill goes in at an angle your post won't line up unless you hand dig i can tell you that that won't be that much fun. for what little money a second bit ($300 plus or min.) will cost you i'd just get a second one.

 

[ronjhall]

I use a 12" auger. Allows me to align post for a straight fence line. Lots of rocks and clay in our soil. Also use it to plant shrubs and small tree's.

 

[MikePA]

If I dig the 4" holes with a 9" auger will the post be too loose.

As others have said, I used a 9" auger to install 4" x 4" x 8' posts.

However, after just a few, I quickly realized it was going to take a very long time to install almost 300 posts, what with broken shear bolts, some hand digging, tamping, etc. I bought a 3ph post driver which turns a tiring, 2 step process into a 1 step process. With a post driver I averaged 15 minutes/post.

 

[Dave5264]

I came close to buying a Auger for my fencing projects, until I learned about the post pounder i could rent for $75 a day.

I can pound, 90 posts a day, they are 4" to 8" Diamiter, 8' long

they are solid as a rock as soon as your done.

takes about 6 minutes per post.

last year I pounded aprox 300 posts (between June and November).

broke 3 posts, hit 1 rock.

see it here, if you can rent one of these, well worth it

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/projects/157448-fall-project-post-pounding-more.html

 

[MikePA]

takse about 6 minutes per post.

My 15 minute/post included everything to get a post in the ground, e.g., positioning the tractor at the spot you want the post, leveling and positioning the post. The actual driving of the post once this is done is only minutes. Working alone increase the time as well. Two people saves a lot of time getting on and off the tractor when positioning the driver. Even so, it took me about 2 months of evening and weekend work to drive both wooden and metal T posts.

see it here, if you can rent one of these, well worth it

http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/projects/157448-fall-project-post-pounding-more.html

The one I have is a 3ph version. Although, either a 3ph or tow behind beats an auger, hands down, for installing a lot of fence posts.

Also note, you do not need a large tractor to use a 3ph post driver. My NH TC25D, with its hydraulic flow, was more than enough tractor to handle it.

 

[Dave5264]

Mike, agree, having 2 people made the task much much faster for me too. No way I could have done 5-6 minutes per post alone Not to mention the guy I hired to help, owns the Pounder and know's how to use it really well..

 

[MikePA]

Mike, agree, having 2 people made the task much much faster for me too. No way I could have done 5-6 minutes per post alone Not to mention the guy I hired to help, owns the Pounder and know's how to use it really well..

For each 'work session', I marked the spot for each post using orange spray paint and laid a post at each location. Some places I could simply drive the tractor down the fence line while other places, because of the terrain, I had to back into the location. Having a hydrostatic drive tractor allowed me to make the final location adjustments without getting back on the tractor. I stood next to the tractor where I could see the orange X and reach the treadle. NOTE: Since this was certainly a safety violation, I was glad the Safety Police didn't catch me. Once it was located, I dropped the 3ph to set the driver on the ground. Then I used the 2 cranks (one for left/right, one for fore/aft) on the driver to get things vertical. Though this description sounds lengthy, even working alone I average 15 minutes per post. A far cry from how long it would have taken using an auger. Of the 250 wooden posts I drove, I think I had one split, but that was caused by a knot near the top of the post. I had one or two T-Posts start to bend when they hit a large rock which caused me to have to relocate the post. Some of the wooden posts are not perfectly vertical because they go off track when they encounter a rock, but because I was using electric tape and not boards, this was not an issue.

 

[Dave5264]

15 min/ post is fast working alone !!

I pounded 50-60 T posts by hand (with a pipe hammer)

I found thier tendancy to bend was too high when i pushed them in with the FEL (any timer after June when the ground is so Hard)...never used the post pounder on the T Posts.

 

[MikePA]

..never used the post pounder on the T Posts.

My post driver came with an accessory for driving T-posts. It looks just like the manual T-post driver (a pipe that's closed on one end with handles on each side), except instead of handles it has 2 plates set at 90 degrees to each other that allow it to fit securely in the channel. The ram drops down on this instead of directly on the T-post. Hard to describe, but it worked.