driving posts in sand

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just got back from Fla, they were using 3" posts 61/2" long and digging holes. up here I use a driver but in sandy soil it is slower, none of the guys down there knew of a post driver in use. anybody know if a driver will work very well in pure sand
 
my guess is that a driver would be the only way to go in pure sand. You are talking about a hydraulic driver, correct? I know that when we were drilling in soft dirt on my place, the sand / dirt just fell right back into the hole as soon as the auger was lifted! Thankfully we only had about 25 sandy holes, as we were able to used a manual post hole digger to clean the holes out. The other 430 holes were pretty much good hard clay or rock, love how that rock bit just dug right through the rocks! We rented a skidsteer unit, was very much faster than my tractor driven digger.
 
In the desert we used long t-posts and drove them with a standard hand (arm/shoulder/back) powered post driver. We had to put them closer togther so they would kind of support each other. I tried welding an additional plate on them at a 90 degree angle from the one that is installed on them. We moved after only 6 years so I don't know if they held up any better then the standard ones. In that area we could go down 300 ft and never it anything bigger then a pea. To dig trenches we would lay a soaker hose down for a day and get the sand thoroughly wetted before trying to dig. Did the same thing with standard holse but usually just scooped a shollow area and kept pouring water in it for a couple of hours, I would think that running a hose at low volume would do the same.

dun


jls":2gzka4z8 said:
just got back from Fla, they were using 3" posts 61/2" long and digging holes. up here I use a driver but in sandy soil it is slower, none of the guys down there knew of a post driver in use. anybody know if a driver will work very well in pure sand
 
It would work great. Most folks here still using augers and wooden posts. I'm trying out metal t-posts and thus far impressed with the ease of installation. Let's see if they rust out in a few years?
 
Our soil was so alkaline that metal posts would start to corrode within just a couple of years but wood posts would lasted forever. For wood posts we would build 2x6 wings and nail them to all four sides of the posts to give them more surface area. The nails would corrode off, but the wood held the post in place from leaning. But you could pull them straight up out of the ground and leave the 2x6s in the hole. Of course the sand filled in the hole so you couldn't put the post back in the same place. Basicly the 2x6s acted as a deadman.

dun

D.R. Cattle":32e5l6tc said:
It would work great. Most folks here still using augers and wooden posts. I'm trying out metal t-posts and thus far impressed with the ease of installation. Let's see if they rust out in a few years?
 

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