Setting Fence Posts

[MikePA]

Some of the post holes I've dug have filled with water with the recent rains. Given the clay soil in some of the holes, the water has not drained. In some holes the clay/soil has mixed with the water and made kind of a pudding. However, the bottom of the hole is solid.

Do I need to remove the water and 'pudding' before setting the post?

 

[Justaplain]

Not if you use the material you ordered to backfill with. I have got 15 to do today that are half full. --------"pea stone" is screened at 1/2 inch up here in NY. bcs

 

[MikePA]

I should have added that to my message...

I am backfilling with 2A modified (3/4" down to fines). Last night my wife and I tried setting a post (she plumbs the post while I backfill). No matter how much I tamped with the digging iron, the stone never seemed to firm up. In fact, tamping on one side of the post would knock the post out of plumb. We only did one post since I wanted to ask a question here before I did more 'wrong'.

 

[cowboydoc]

I've never had any luck unless I waited until it was dry again. I once went back and did a whole row over again. I thought I had gotten it tight with dry dirt I brought over and some gravel but the ground was so wet it just saturated it and the posts became loose. I'd wait until it dry out if you want good results.

 

[MikePA]

hi doc, how did you do the row over again? How'd you get the posts out?

 

[erich]

I've used the three point hitch or a FEL to pull them. With the 3 point I have a grab hook that pins to the 3 point draw bar. I wrap a chain around the post 3 or 4 times, hook it to the grab hook and lift them out slicker than a whistle. It's good to have a helper and it looks like you do.

My dad bought a 100 acre farm north of Moline, Illinois when I was 11. My brothers and I are sure that it was to keep us out of trouble. It didn't have a decent fence on the whole place so we pulled out the old and fenced and cross fenced the whole place. I seem to remember my mom saying that the hard work would build our character. I guess mom was right cause my wife thinks I am quite a character.

We had so much fence to build that my older brother and I used to go out to the machine shed in the dead of winter when we had nothing else to do and dig post holes in the unfrozen dirt floor. We would then stack them in the corner so after the spring thaw we could take them out to the fence line and just put em in place;-)

I live in New England now and boy, every time I dig a post hole I understand why my ancestors moved west. You can't even use a regular PHD out here without a pocket full of shear bolts. I have bent metal posts and sheared off the 'Flags driving them in this rocky ground. I used to wonder why New Englander's could not build a decent fence, now I know. I have pulled rocks bigger than my head out of post holes. I wish I had a little more real soil here even if I had to wait for it to dry out.

Well have fun building fence. There's nothing like being able to look back on several rods of well built fence that will last a few decades.

Eric

 

[Soundguy]

Where my parents live, there is alot of limerock... well heck.. all limerock I guess. When I was little.. we didn't even own a spade shovel.. just a flat one, and a pick axe.. the pick axe dug the hole, and the flat shovel filled it back in...

I hated sinking fence posts. At least every now and then we used the 't' posts and a slide driver.. that wasn't too bad.

Soundguy

 

[cowboydoc]

Pulled them all out, with a chain and loader and started over. /w3tcompact/icons/sad.gif

 

[MikePA]

<font color=blue>...with a chain and loader</font color=blue>
How'd you attach the chain to the post, drill a hole thru it?

<font color=blue>and started over./w3tcompact/icons/sad.gif</font color=blue>
Ow! Sad face is right.

Just tonight I finished digging the 185th, and last hole, with the 3ph phd. Some of the holes will need some hand work to clean them out or deepened with a digging iron before I can set the posts, but the majority of the holes are ready for posts.

I was thinking about getting the water out of the holes, either with a coffee can, or a 12v pump. I haven't looked into the pump yet, but given the clay soil, it might take a long time for these holes to drain.

 

[wroughtn_harv]

Mike I'm facing the same problem here on a job in Weatherford Texas. We dug a hundred plus holes last week. It's a ornamental iron fence around a pond at a high school.

We got about half the posts wet when the rain ran us off. We got there yesterday and of course after six plus inches we not only had the remaining holes full of water but sand a dirt too.

We got in three hours yesterday and two today of work before the rain got the better of us.

I try to get the holes dry as possible.

Here's how.

Your local landscape supply should have these neater'n a pin on a purdy lady's chest hand pumps. They're grey pvc with a flex tube discharge hose about four feet long. Sprinkler guys use them to evacuate holes when repairing broken lines. They'll empy a five gallon bucket in a heartbeat. They'll even suck muck. Not even your best friend will do that for you./w3tcompact/icons/laugh.gif

I carry one on the truck just for those occasions when nothing else will do.

After you get the muck and water sucked out I'd consider some manual digger work. In the clay you can stab down and pick up a bite. You will have as much icky poo as clay but two or three bites and you will have a dry or close to it hole. One nice thing about the clay is the water is in the icky poo at the top. You pull that and you're back in business.

As you slip and slide in the icky poo you pulled out just be glad you aren't in my shoes. It's on pretty good grade. A good enough grade that I couldn't get my skid loader down there unless it was dry dry and it'd be straight down in and straight down out.

It's all been freshly hydromulched which means it wet down a bit even before the rain. They hauled in top soil. That means there's about a four to six inch layer of icky poo on top that will pull your feet out from under you and do it's best to get in your pockets.

Normally I'll load four to five eighty pound bags of Maximizer in a wheelbarrow to hand mix. In the icky poo and because of the terrain we have learned repeatedly and often that the limit is two. Three and as you're traversing sideways down the grade the from wheel decides it's an airboat pontoon at heart and all you hear is "wheeeeeee". Or you hit the sprinkler line trench and the wheel buries itself and you find yourself half in the wheel barrow and two thirds in the muck.

What I like best is to be standing there sighting down the line one minute and the next being all flying arms and feet trying to get footing and not touch anything like the just set perfect post.

This is definately one of those jobs where you do ten times the work you planned on.