Fencing question: 4" auger or 6"?

[Jason Slocum]

how many feet of fence

No augers.

Driven in

Corners driven here too with 2 7/8 h frames.

1350’ on one fence line and 900 on the other. I’ll have the corners beefed up and a couple of H braces or triangle braces put in.

[brokeno]

Driving them in with a skid loader would be better I m o. And less work than a post hole auger and concrete. Better put a kicker off your H braces.

[muddydog]

Drive the line posts, auger corners with at least 8-10 in auger. Flare the hole sides on the bottom. 4-1/2 H brace with a Deadman corners and 2-3/8 for line posts every 80-100 ft. Depending on how much fence you stringing but renting a driver for driving the posts will be cheaper than concrete price plus the hauling water and mixing labor.

[Big pig]

1350’ on one fence line and 900 on the other. I’ll have the corners beefed up and a couple of H braces or triangle braces put in.

Looks like “I Dig Texas” website has some kind of extension for high fence posts.

[eliteweldingco]

I like driving them. But when we do drill them, we use a 9” auger. That way they’re is room for getting the hole outta line. Occasionally a 6” auger but never a 4”. Couldn’t use post hole diggers to clean out the loose dirt with less than a 6” hole, and that’d be tough even.

[BRUTE 23]

Going to put up 8' game fencing on our new property and I was curious if we should use a 4" auger or 6" auger for drilling holes for the 2 - 3/8" 12' pipes. I'd rather just go with the 4" since were putting the pipe 4' deep with 1-2 bags of concrete in each hole but not sure if it would be strong enough. It's in Bee County with mostly sandy soil FYI.

Thanks for the advice!

Jason Slocum

Use at least a 6". We would put enough dirt in and tamp it to hold the pipe for us while we the pour the concrete kind of thick so you can walk off. It works on regular fence height posts, it should work on that. Leave a mound on top. Some will settle but it can help keep dirt away from the pipe.

I have also put dirt, set like a 1 sack section, then came back a couple days later and filled with dirt. It took a backhoe to dig them out a couple years later. It made an anchor and we were bending 4" pipe trying to pull it. It was faster to dig beside it and pull them out rather than fight it.

[Dusty Britches]

I'm putting in 12' 2-3/8" oilfield pipe. Climbing a ladder while holding a 50'lb driver and then driving them in is more work than I can handle. Plus most gas drivers won't do 2-3/8" round pipe.

Rent a bigger driver and use a tractor to move and hold it over the pipes. That's what we did and drove 1.25 miles of tposts in 1 day during a drought 2 years ago. Ground was so hard we could not drive those tposts by hand. Sure glad to have it, but using the front end loader on the tractor was the cat's meow. We pulled a diesel generator with a ATV to operate the driver. Once we had our method down it went really fast.

If you still want to go with drilling holes for a 2 3/8" pipe, use the 6 inch with concrete. No point in adding only about 1/2" of concrete to the outside to a metal pipe like that on a 4" hole.

[Txhunter3000]

I like driving them. But when we do drill them, we use a 9” auger. That way they’re is room for getting the hole outta line. Occasionally a 6” auger but never a 4”. Couldn’t use post hole diggers to clean out the loose dirt with less than a 6” hole, and that’d be tough even.

This

[Throwin Darts]

Do a run of pouring concrete in each hole and you'll be off to rent a skid steer with a driver

[jgard]

Only problem with driving the post is going to be your length all the post drivers I have been around 11’ is the longest I have been able to drive if you concrete them use a 6” minimum I would do a 8”