Need tips on drilling upright post holes

[bcp]

OK, so here is the 'other' problem. I dig a 10" hole, insert a 5" post, and there is not enough fill dirt. You have to take a bucket full of filler with you. Even worse if you pull the old stump, redrill the hole and put in a new post.

Happen all the time when I'm transplanting.

From:
The unexplained metaphysics of dirt - Dave's Garden

"No matter how carefully one keeps track of the dirt one takes out of a hole in the ground, there is never enough dirt left to fill the hole even back to the level it was to begin with... where did the extra dirt go? I have dug thousands of holes over the last 15 years and often filled them with plants, including all the soil the plants came with... and then backfilled the rest of the hole with whatever dirt was still around... and even then I sometimes came up short."

Bruce

 

[CADplans]

My elderly neighbor refused to let me help him install fence posts with my PHD that had a 10 inch auger.
He dug the holes by hand,,

After digging some holes, and installing some posts, I found why he did not like the 10 inch auger,,,
the posts were loose,,, forever!!

I purchased a 6 inch auger, the posts installed tight,,
actually my elderly neighbor let me dig some of the holes for him!! :thumbsup:

My ten inch auger was only used for tree planting after that,,
I learned to prefer a tight fence,,,

Oh, yea, I can only dig a vertical hole if my wife is directing me to move the tractor as needed,,,

 

[Redlands Okie]

Yep wives can keep be good at keeping you straight.

 

[sixdogs]

Drill the hole large enough that even if a little crooked, you can still set the post straight. Just backfill / tamp real good

This is the only thing that ever really worked for me.



A slight alternative to this is to drill all the posts from the same tractor angle and in a way that lessens or hides their lack of uniformity. When I used to pound my tomato T posts in, I stood sideways. When I looked from the road, all had a tilt to them. When I looked from the straight direction, all looked fine. So that's the way I stood after that and my posts were straight as an arrow--from the one direction.

I sort of applied this to my 3pt auger and put in a long fence line visible only as a long line from the road. You couldn't view it the other direction so I lined the tractor up in the same direction as the line. The posts still had a bit of a lean to them but you couldn't tell it from the road. This won't work in every situation but is something that I did and it worked in some situations.

 

[theg]

Lmao lolo

 

[stuckmotor]

There's a whole thread concerning missing dirt over at the physics forums. I read the whole thing and didn't find an explanation I liked. When you dig a hole, where does the dirt go? | Physics Forumsr
Oh yeah, the phenomenon is said to be the opposite in Arizona.

 

[r porter]

a question--
I have dug many holes by hand and with an auger [ also driven a bunch with a driver]

but I have never been around one of the hydraulic augers that mount on the loader. do they do the same as a rear mount auger?

 

[Fallon]

a question--
I have dug many holes by hand and with an auger [ also driven a bunch with a driver]

but I have never been around one of the hydraulic augers that mount on the loader. do they do the same as a rear mount auger?

Loaders doent lift vertically, they go in an arc just like your 3pt. It isnt quite as dramatic as the 3pt across the 4' PHD range, but its close.

When I was putting in my fence with a crosbar I put it in 1 post at a time so we could precisely align, & plumb each one. I had a couple helpers & one of em would stand to the side & let me know when to bump the go pedal a hair to keep the auger level on it's way down. That was with my 3pt, but similar issues with the new SSQA mount PHD.

Posts stay tight if you tamp the backfill in really tight. If you dont tamp it hard they loosen up. I upgraded from a 9" auger to 12" for my 6" posts. It let me hsve wiggle room to get the precise alignment I needed. No matter how good you work things, post holes aren't perfectly aligned or plumb. That means you need room to shuffle the post in the hole before tamping things in tight.

 

[sdef]

+1. Works every time

 

[Dadnatron]

Volume wise, physically impossible unless you are leaving something out like rocks when backfilling. If anything, there is fill left over because of the space the post takes up and the original dirt is not compacted like it was before drilling. :confused3:

Then again, perhaps the auger is uplifting some of the soil surrounding the hole forming a mound higher than the original surface of the ground which would require more fill in the hole if not tamped down?

Actually, all it means is the density at which he is tamping the dirt is greater than the density of the soil prior to digging the hole. I wouldn't recommend you decrease the degree of tamping, however, you might simply be creating a dense 'jacket' around the post, in relatively loose soil.