Post's without cement

[gsb]

I would like to put up a mor permanent fence around my garden but do not want to cement them in incase i expand or down size. How do I makr the posts stay true wothout using cement? I have some wooden posts and chicken wire to use. thanks

[walls0stone]

what kind of posts?

Digging holes larger than the post, and filling them with clean Pea Stone...put just a few inches of stone in the hole, then the post..then have a helper pour in more pea Stone all around. in a day or so, it will be solid, but you coule pull up the post later.

[SkooliesRock]

I think I'd stick to dirt, put your post in the hole, add some dirt & tamp it down firm, more dirt-more tamping. Go 6-8" at a time, and tamp it firm with something heavy. Check level constantly, and tamp evenly. I'd be afraid pea gravel wouldn't pack, and may heave in the winter after it allows water to collect in the hole.

[walls0stone]

I agreed untill I did it. This makes sence becouse it acts on the principles that have held stone walls with out mortar together for centuries.

stone allows for water go move, not stopping to freeze and thus move the post. the stone in the hole settles (your right it won't pack like dirt, it settles) and smaller stones work between the bigger, this being a relitive term in terms of Pea Gravel. Soil is also more effected by frost preasure. Pea stone clean will act like a spring. contracting, but when spring comes..it retracts, keeping the post in place. The other thing I like about this, is that you can re use the stone when used clean.

[flatwater]

I have used crushed rock for years to tamp around my posts. To me pee gravel is to round and won't pack as well as gravel and dirt and rock hold to much moisture.
Flatwater

[walls0stone]

aahhhh another case of diffrant places and products, our Pea gravel is much like 2A, but crushed smaller. The Angular nature Good point! But I let it settle and with a day or a rain, it will settle.

What I've been doing here is digging down (in spring) around 4 feet or more and setting a phone poll on the corner. Every 5 paces I set another. I started doing this in highschool and the first section I did back then still stands.

Now I'm digging up Locust trees from were they start growing in our fields and replanting them in were the fences are. I hope in 10 years I won't need to pound posts :)

[SkooliesRock]

Well....I can show you hundreds of miles of farm fence that's stood for decades with no gravel, just dirt ;)

[WRTN]

If you can rent a post driver, you can drive the post into the ground without boring a hole with a post hole digger. Once the post is driven to depth, trust me this, it will NOT move and you will not pull it out short of digging it up. I fenced about a 100 acres using this method last year installing high tensile electrified fence. At the time it cost me about $2.25 per foot to run 5 wires with the top, middle, and bottom wires hot.

[walls0stone]

oh yea Schoolies million ways to do something great.
I can show you miles and miles of free standing fence with no wood that pre-date Christ ;D West coast of Irland.

One thing I'll never do again was use a backhoe, the settleing dirt in the trench didnt work for my HT corners at all.

Friend of mine took an auger from a line truck and built an atachment for his backhoe. The downward preasure from the hoe, combined with the reach and angles of the arm make it great. He put a drilliing bit on it that would go threw Hell no problem...but he costs a ton just to come out.

[WRTN]

Here is the manufacturer of the post driver:

http://www.shavermfg.com/Dr.htm

Here is a video of the driver in action:

http://www.shavermfg.com/movie.htm

Keep in mind these posts are not sharpened. They are flat on the end just like you buy them. When the operator told me he could drive a 10 inch post in the ground last summer during the drought, I just laughed and said no way, I want to see this...... he made a believer out of me.

As I understand it, once the first 10 inches of soil is penetrated, the rest goes fairly well as the dirt under the blount end of the fence post being driven in the ground actually creates a cone which acts as a penetrator.

I did the math of drilling that many post holes and tamping the dirt and rock back in and the post driver is the way to go on big jobs. For smaller fence jobs the post hole digger is much cheaper. Using the phd, just back fill with the dirt around the post and tamp it in real hard with an 8 ft. steel tamping bar for wood posts. A spring loaded T-post driver works best on steel T-posts. If you like steel T-posts, you can get some corner brace kits for steel T-posts. They are not quite as solid as wood braces but still pretty stout.

[SkooliesRock]

oh yea Schoolies million ways to do something great.
I can show you miles and miles of free standing fence with no wood that pre-date Christ ;D *West coast of Irland.



I'll take ya up on the offer ....if it includes airfare ;D

[flatwater]

Another condition I have seen is how the acidity of the soil can make a difference and the type of wood used. Point #1 all ceder is not the same and point #2 I had a ceder fence in the same part of the state Deborosa comes from and it is still standing today.(about 30 years) I put ceder posts in on the east side and because of the acidity of the soil here , they rotted out in three years.
Flatwater

[walls0stone]

SR
I have friends who do go over, they are in the travel business, 2 trips to Irland a year, and they bring me back pictures of the walls. Stone work on that side of the island is called a lace wall, it's a skill hard learned...even after 10 years of stonework I'm impressed...

As a kid all my friends from school who didn't farm would come here to help build fence...but only one section, beside the road... few very cute young ladies lived up the road and the chance to show off the arms from wrestling season and swing a post maul was a great way (we thought) to catch their eye...HA! they married city boys and moved. ;D

[AlchemyAcres]

How do I makr the posts stay true wothout using cement?

Do you have clay subsoil?

I tamp my posts for high-tensile in with the clay subsoil, using the tamping end of a digging bar....when tamped into place well the fill is no more porous to water than the surrounding soil.
The subsoil must be moist but not wet in order to tamp well.
Tamping a couple flat stones, wider than the post, in place at the bottom of the hole and near the surface up against the posts will make them much more solid.
For corner posts I use deadman braces underground in addition to the H brace above ground.
One deadman brace at the bottom of the post, opposite the direction of pull, another large deadman brace near the surface of the ground on the side of the direction of pull.....when well tamped into place the posts won't budge.


~Martin :)

[Naughty_Pines]

There are metal things called post spikes, I think that is correct, that you pound into the ground and then put the wooden post into it and nail it together. Proably be a good idea.

[MissouriFree]

goin back to the fill material. Has anyone used crushed/recycled concrete ?

[crafty2002]

The best way I have planted post and done it when I was about 12 years old and ever since then, was to dig the hole, set the post in the hole, shovel about two scoops of dirt in and tamp it with the handle of a 8 to 12# sledge hammer. The bigger the better.
One full shovel of dirt after that and then tamp. Tamp hardest on the side it leans to and add more dirt to that side until it plumbs up and just keep adding and tamping.
Daddy always said if you have dirt left over you didn't tamp enough.
Ever try to keep post on a string line when you were 12-15 years old.
You can move a post that is alread set an inch or so by digging a little on the side you want it to move to and tamping the other side. I got really good at it and also growing calluses by the time I was 15, LOL.
I have planted post in all kinds of dirt and the only place I ever had any problem was in soggy soil. That doesn't tamp good.
With that I dig the whole over sized and fill with rock dust/crusher run, or whatever you want to call the dust that comes from a rock quarry. That stuff sets like concrete for holding a post but you can still get it back up and it will till right into the garden if you want to expand later.
Dennis

[cubcadet]

crafty2002,
The stone dust is used on the Pan American Highway that goes up to Alaska and the best stuff comes from the stone masonry plants when they use the stone saws. Mixed with crushed recycled concrete or crushed stone it is called quarry process or QP and is used for paving material and will set almost as hard as concrete but, can be worked again and again.
Anybody ever char their posts before setting them in? I asked the guys at the soil conservation district office about that and they said they have heard of it being done. I`m going to try it in the spring, on some hemlock ties I got last year

[crazychuck]

I have built quite a few decks and the smaller ones we used gravel and they are still standin true. If you know you are gonna move the post a few years from now, I wouldnt bother with any gravel. ;D

[harvester]

i dont know what kind of soil you have but all we do is fill the hole in with a little dirt a little water a little dirt a little water etc..till the hole is filled, compacting as we go along and by the time it sets up it may as well be like cement.

[DM]

The fastest way to put wooden post in, that stay put, is with a tractor mounted post pounder... They don't go anyplace once pounded in!

Another way, that's most times cheaper to do, is to "auger" the holes with a post hole digger, that's UNDERSIZE a few inches of the diameter of the post... Then pound the post into the undersize hole... You also can use the "loader" on a tractor to quickly push them in, and they do stay in place...

DM

[ldsparamedic]

We have sand out here and I found that using a "water drill" to make the hole, place post and backfill the small gap with sand would sept up a great post. We had to wait a couple of days for the post to set before we applied a load. When we built our horse pens this way, even our pawing Mustangs couldn't budge them. A water drill is basically a sweeper nozzle attached to a length of PVC pipe with a garden hose attached. You can buy the kit at Lowes.