Question for the fence builders

[87manche]

the dingo is the whip. local rental place rents those.

theyre a walk behind bobcat essentially.

 

[bjoehandley]

I would be hesitant to build a fence with just dirt packing the posts, especially if it was anything other than a split rail fence. I wouldnt put up a privacy fence with a 6" hole packed only with dirt.

tough to effectively pack the dirt back in with that little room. If you are going to backfill with dirt instead of using cement you HAVE to be able to compact it well.

He's got a 1"x6' bar stock that has to be at least 30-40 pounds that we use to compact the soil up until we get the hole about 2/3-3/4 filled, then we switch to a tamper that is a around 1.5"x6' with a 2" wide flat point (kinda looks like a huge screwdriver) at one end and a 2"-3" diameter, 1/2" thick flat disk welded to the other (also pretty damn heavy). The fence we just took down Sunday had been up since the mid 90's and it took everything we've thrown at it as well as our current neighbors and the ones they bought the house from. Only times we've lost posts were when a down burst hit suddenly 4 years ago and broke one post above the ground across the yard from these as well as the fence along the back of the property that backs up the "dog walk" that those neighbors have behind their garage. Those posts were pretty rotted when we took them out and had the "fill" from the dog walk pressing into them on top of it. Those posts were replaced with fairly new railroad ties that Dad brought home from work in the late 90's-early 00's and I'd be willing to bet I'll be in my grave before those will need to be replaced.

We're definitely setting the posts in concrete. Plus in a matter of a few years I can only imagine the posts would begin to rot if they weren't set in concrete.

Not sure how it is in Ohio, but we're in the Chicago Burbs and some of the posts we took out were starting to rot, but they still weren't as bad as the ones they replaced from when we moved here back in '79. IIRC those were also pressure treated 4"x4"x10' posts (Dad thought we had put in 8', but we discovered otherwise as we were jacking them out of the ground:laugh: ) One thing you may want to be careful of is where the frost line might be, those posts were starting to rise up some from frost heave. We actually re-dug the holes a little deeper for the 10 footers besides the one that was replaced with a 12 footer to try and get them below the frost line.

 

[samger2]

Ended up getting a one man auger for the sole reason that my brother's neighbor owns one and let us borrow it. I figured it was worth the try for free. The clay was what really slowed us down. There weren't very many rocks at all, just lots of hard clay. The auger didn't do much beyond about the first 10 inches at the very most. After that it was just building a ridge and polishing it. So we started every hole with the auger then finished them to anywhere between 24-30 inches deep with the spud bar and post hole digger. We got just around 20 holes dug that way and about 10 posts in. The fun continues today.

 

[bjoehandley]

Looks Good so far, good luck with the rest. Make sure you have plenty of drinking water on hand, eat well when you break for lunch, use sun screan (I'm still peeling from last week), and have some pain relievers handy.

 

[bigalpha]

The PO of my house put in a fence with hole that look like this - the fence posts haven't exactly held up too well. I would be paranoid to have a 24" deep, 5-6" wide hole holding up my privacy fence around here. I can only imagine that the frost line must be deeper up in Ohio.

 

[xcm]

MANUAL LABOR can be so rewarding.... =)

 

[bjoehandley]

The PO of my house put in a fence with hole that look like this - the fence posts haven't exactly held up too well. I would be paranoid to have a 24" deep, 5-6" wide hole holding up my privacy fence around here. I can only imagine that the frost line must be deeper up in Ohio.

That's why we went deeper this time around on the 10 footers and put in a 12 footer at the far east end, the 10' that it replaced was a good 5"-6" above where it was when we put it in 15+ years ago. Dad ended up dumping water into a few of the holes to try and soften the clay and make the digging easier, especially when we did run into the occasional rocks.

 

[samger2]

Most of the holes are much wider than they appear in those pics where I put the rings around. I basically did that only to look nice, but the holes are FAR wider than 5-6 inches. We went about 30 inches deep on all the holes.

 

[samger2]

Got the fence done this weekend. Looks amazing. The bald guy in the pic is my brothers friend/neighbor and is a carpenter by trade. He helped TREMENDOUSLY and does amazing work.

 

[87manche]

Most of the holes are much wider than they appear in those pics where I put the rings around. I basically did that only to look nice, but the holes are FAR wider than 5-6 inches. We went about 30 inches deep on all the holes.

30" is probably alright.

Code for my county is 36".

I didn't notice you're in blacklick. I'm in Ashland, just an hour north. Are you going to Winterfest this year? If so, we should convoy that. Sadly my tow rig is already spoken for. Well, maybe if I actually make the Jeep driveable this winter.

 

[samger2]

Where's winterfest this year?

 

[kastein]

in a field full of hay and WW II trench mud!