I'm doing a bit of hard landscaping in the back garden putting in some
Marshall's woodstone posts and sleepers. the posts are 150x150mm x
600m long and need 200mm of their depth concreting in.

The Marshalls catalogue says they need to be a concrete base of
300x300mm x 200mm deep.

So far I've done 4 posts - dug 250mm deep - put 50mm of 10mm gravel in
the bottom of the hole to level them up and they look pretty good.

I've got 20 more posts to go but hate digging - the hire shop has a
petrol post hole borer but max dia is 250mm which won't leave as much
concrete around the post as a 300x300mm square hole.

My plan now would be to bore a deeper hole - say 600mm - fill up the
bottom 400mm of the hole with concrete to a depth of 400mm and some
rebar that's say 550mm long - then when that's gone off - (time isn't
important) pop the posts in and concrete up to ground level.

I'm kind of thinking that the extra depth of concrete should make up
for the smaller cross section.

Any major reasons not to do it this way ?

Regards

Steve.
- Steve Lowe
- E-Mail :
- Before Replying Remove .NO.SPAM
- UK Resident although my e-mail address is usa.net

Steve Lowe wrote:
I'm doing a bit of hard landscaping in the back garden putting in some
Marshall's woodstone posts and sleepers. the posts are 150x150mm x
600m long and need 200mm of their depth concreting in.

The Marshalls catalogue says they need to be a concrete base of
300x300mm x 200mm deep.

So far I've done 4 posts - dug 250mm deep - put 50mm of 10mm gravel in
the bottom of the hole to level them up and they look pretty good.

I've got 20 more posts to go but hate digging - the hire shop has a
petrol post hole borer but max dia is 250mm which won't leave as much
concrete around the post as a 300x300mm square hole.

My plan now would be to bore a deeper hole - say 600mm - fill up the
bottom 400mm of the hole with concrete to a depth of 400mm and some
rebar that's say 550mm long - then when that's gone off - (time isn't
important) pop the posts in and concrete up to ground level.

I'm kind of thinking that the extra depth of concrete should make up
for the smaller cross section.

Any major reasons not to do it this way ?

Regards

Steve.

Yes - if your posts are 150mm then a 250mm hole only leaves 50mm
thicknes around the post on the flats and 19mm on the corners!!!!

Steve Lowe wrote:

Any major reasons not to do it this way ?

Regards

Steve.


OTOH boring out then squaring off with a sharp spade to 300x300 would
still be a lot easier than digging it all out by hand.

"Steve Lowe" wrote in message
...
I'm doing a bit of hard landscaping in the back garden putting in some
Marshall's woodstone posts and sleepers. the posts are 150x150mm x
600m long and need 200mm of their depth concreting in.

The Marshalls catalogue says they need to be a concrete base of
300x300mm x 200mm deep.

So far I've done 4 posts - dug 250mm deep - put 50mm of 10mm gravel in
the bottom of the hole to level them up and they look pretty good.

I've got 20 more posts to go but hate digging - the hire shop has a
petrol post hole borer but max dia is 250mm which won't leave as much
concrete around the post as a 300x300mm square hole.

I've hired one of these from HSS in the past and found that you get a cone
(ish) shaped hole as the spoil and disturbance at the top makes the hole a
fair bit bigger than the cutter.

Get a two-man one, as even that was hard to hang onto every time it hit a
flint, I'd imagine a single-man version would be near impossible.

As Phil says, it's easy to square up a round hole with a spade afterwards,
so I'd just bore to the depth you need and concrete in one go.
I've had good results with the dry "post-mix" stuff that you pour water over
once in the hole.

Alan.

On 6 Jun 2006 05:53:55 -0700 "Phil"
wrote:


Steve Lowe wrote:

Any major reasons not to do it this way ?

Regards

Steve.


OTOH boring out then squaring off with a sharp spade to 300x300 would
still be a lot easier than digging it all out by hand.

Hi

Mulling it over I'd come to the same conclusion, also as Alan says the
hole might be bigger at the top anyway

- it might be handy for opening very large wine bottles as well !!!

Cheers

Steve.


- Steve Lowe
- E-Mail :
- Before Replying Remove .NO.SPAM
- UK Resident although my e-mail address is usa.net

"Alan" wrote in message
...

"Steve Lowe" wrote in message
...
I'm doing a bit of hard landscaping in the back garden putting in some
Marshall's woodstone posts and sleepers. the posts are 150x150mm x
600m long and need 200mm of their depth concreting in.

The Marshalls catalogue says they need to be a concrete base of
300x300mm x 200mm deep.

So far I've done 4 posts - dug 250mm deep - put 50mm of 10mm gravel in
the bottom of the hole to level them up and they look pretty good.

I've got 20 more posts to go but hate digging - the hire shop has a
petrol post hole borer but max dia is 250mm which won't leave as much
concrete around the post as a 300x300mm square hole.

I've hired one of these from HSS in the past and found that you get a cone
(ish) shaped hole as the spoil and disturbance at the top makes the hole a
fair bit bigger than the cutter.

Get a two-man one, as even that was hard to hang onto every time it hit a
flint, I'd imagine a single-man version would be near impossible.

As Phil says, it's easy to square up a round hole with a spade afterwards,
so I'd just bore to the depth you need and concrete in one go.
I've had good results with the dry "post-mix" stuff that you pour water
over once in the hole.

Alan.

"Alan" wrote in message
...

"Steve Lowe" wrote in message
...
I'm doing a bit of hard landscaping in the back garden putting in some
Marshall's woodstone posts and sleepers. the posts are 150x150mm x
600m long and need 200mm of their depth concreting in.

The Marshalls catalogue says they need to be a concrete base of
300x300mm x 200mm deep.

So far I've done 4 posts - dug 250mm deep - put 50mm of 10mm gravel in
the bottom of the hole to level them up and they look pretty good.

I've got 20 more posts to go but hate digging - the hire shop has a
petrol post hole borer but max dia is 250mm which won't leave as much
concrete around the post as a 300x300mm square hole.

I've hired one of these from HSS in the past and found that you get a cone
(ish) shaped hole as the spoil and disturbance at the top makes the hole a
fair bit bigger than the cutter.

Get a two-man one, as even that was hard to hang onto every time it hit a
flint, I'd imagine a single-man version would be near impossible.

Single man ones are actually better as there's a huge lever to help (you are
at the business end but there's an engine and wheels some way away that
resists being flung round). Two man ones have no built in mechanical
advantage to hang on to, so tend to fling you about. I used a single man one
quite successfully and got cyclindrical holes -100mm only though.


--
Bob Mannix
(anti-spam is as easy as 1-2-3 - not)

On Tue, 06 Jun 2006 13:24:49 +0100, Steve Lowe wrote:

I'm doing a bit of hard landscaping in the back garden putting in some
Marshall's woodstone posts and sleepers. the posts are 150x150mm x
600m long and need 200mm of their depth concreting in.

Care to look at you units? A 600 metre post (some post!) with only 200
milli metres in the ground? The only thing I'm moderately sure about is
the 150 x 150 being a nominal 6 inch square post. B-)

I'm not a great fan of concreting in timber posts, unless the bottom of
the post is left open to let any water out. Otherwise the post ends up
sitting in the water contained by the enclosing concrete. A decent bit of
timber well treated will last in the ground anyway. You don't see
telegraph poles set in concrete. B-)

--
Cheers
Dave. pam is missing e-mail

The message om
from "Dave Liquorice" contains these words:

Care to look at you units?

I saw a website about power stations a few days ago proudly claiming
outputs in the order of hundreds of milliwatts.

And this bunch, who really ought to know better since they're in the
business of explosive devices seem confused about Joules. I suspect it
would be hard to make an explosive device that liberated only 6 to 9
milliJoules. A mistake repeated through the document.
http://www.appliedexplosives.com.au/smalbook.pdf (page 6)

Nice toys though. But alarming when you read
"The slug impacts with approx 13 - 15mj energy that is accurate
to at least 60 metres. A free-fired BD 318 could result in
the slug traveling more than 5 kilometres."

--
Skipweasel
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

On Tue, 06 Jun 2006 16:19:31 +0100 (BST), "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:

|On Tue, 06 Jun 2006 13:24:49 +0100, Steve Lowe wrote:
|
| I'm doing a bit of hard landscaping in the back garden putting in some
| Marshall's woodstone posts and sleepers. the posts are 150x150mm x
| 600m long and need 200mm of their depth concreting in.
|
|Care to look at you units? A 600 metre post (some post!) with only 200
|milli metres in the ground? The only thing I'm moderately sure about is
|the 150 x 150 being a nominal 6 inch square post. B-)
|
|I'm not a great fan of concreting in timber posts, unless the bottom of
|the post is left open to let any water out. Otherwise the post ends up
|sitting in the water contained by the enclosing concrete. A decent bit of
|timber well treated will last in the ground anyway. You don't see
|telegraph poles set in concrete. B-)

But you see a lot of ex-telephone poles much worse for wear on the back of
lorries. The one which carries our phone line bit the dust after only 45
years.
--
Dave Fawthrop dave hyphenologist co uk Google Groups is IME the *worst*
method of accessing usenet. GG subscribers would be well advised get a
newsreader, say Agent, and a newsserver, say news.individual.net. These
will allow them: to see only *new* posts, a killfile, and other goodies.

On Tue, 06 Jun 2006 16:19:31 +0100 (BST) "Dave Liquorice"
wrote:

On Tue, 06 Jun 2006 13:24:49 +0100, Steve Lowe wrote:

I'm doing a bit of hard landscaping in the back garden putting in some
Marshall's woodstone posts and sleepers. the posts are 150x150mm x
600m long and need 200mm of their depth concreting in.

Care to look at you units? A 600 metre post (some post!) with only 200
milli metres in the ground? The only thing I'm moderately sure about is
the 150 x 150 being a nominal 6 inch square post. B-)

I'm not a great fan of concreting in timber posts, unless the bottom of
the post is left open to let any water out. Otherwise the post ends up
sitting in the water contained by the enclosing concrete. A decent bit of
timber well treated will last in the ground anyway. You don't see
telegraph poles set in concrete. B-)

Apologies for the units error - posts are concrete !! the clue is in
the name WoodSTONE !!

I agree with you about timber posts - I always coat timber posts with
a bitumen type paint and wrap them in polythene and have gravel at the
bottom of the hole

TTFN

Steve.

- Steve Lowe
- E-Mail :
- Before Replying Remove .NO.SPAM
- UK Resident although my e-mail address is usa.net