How much of this pole should be below ground?

[micky]

Over by the dog walk area, I found my n'hood dog poop bag dispenser knocked over and broken into pieces, probably by a truck.

I don't have a dog, but I can fix it without much trouble.

It has a metal box to dispense plastic bags, and a metal cylinder with a bunch of holes (to save weight?) to accept used bags, and the whole thing is mounted to a metal pole.

The cross section of the metal pole is like an omega except with no curves, just right angles __ _| |_

I don't know what this kind of post is called. What???

It has a hole every inch or two and is designed to snap off at the hole, which it did.

When I pound it into the ground again, how deep should it go into the ground?????

It was probably about 5 feet tall before, but it doesn't have to be any particular height.

The box that holds the empty bags weighs very little but the cylinder seems heavier, 5 or 10 pounds?. Plus the weight of all that poop, although much of it seems to be candy bar wrappers, paper cups, etc. makes 8 or 12 pounds? Plus 2 pounds for the box and whatever the post itself weighs.

There are two lengths bolted together now. If you tell me what the post is called, I might consider buying a replacement bottom piece to make it the same height, but I'd still need to know how much to pound into the ground.

Thanks.

[trader_4]

Fence post

Partly depends on how firm the ground is. And sometimes the ground gets so hard beyond a certain depth that you just can't drive it any further. Also depends on what it has to hold. Two feet is probably OK for a light load, more would be better.

Plus you have people pulling on it, shaking, it, etc. I'd definitely try for more than 2 ft.

The bolted together part was probably done so that they could set the final height independent of how far they drive it in. (see part about how sometimes the ground gets so hard you can't drive it any farther).

HD, hardware stores etc should have the fence post. HD it's usually outside in the garden supplies area where they have fence stuff.

An easier option would be to just report it to the town or whoever has responsibility for the thing, no?

[nestork]

The standard for fence posts is 1/3 of the length in the ground, 2/3 of the length above ground. But, the post would be sturdier if you increased that ratio a bit, to perhaps 40 percent in the ground and 60 percent above ground.

[micky]

Thanks. I thought it would be less for a post with so little load and so small a hole.

[micky]

I can probably get 2' from what is there now, though people will have to figure out that they need to bend over. But I''ll look for matching post.

I think that's very little. The bags pull out with almost no force, the lid for the bottom part they might let flop open and then slam shut, but even that isn't much since the lid is not very heavy. And they probably avoid any other contact because of the bags of poop. I know I sure did.

The HOA put it up and is responsible. No one else, just about, who actually lives here seems to have any mechanical ability, and I suspect the management company of taking kickbacks or at the very least bad choices. I've also been a pain in the neck to the HOA lately, so this might make up for that. Although the president didn't call me back last night, and I don't know who is now in charge of the right committee. OTOH, I said to call me back if someone else was going to do it, so silence might be all I need. It will only take an hour or less. The cylinder is ripped from the post but it has spare holes. (and one plastic bag that holds all the other used plastic bags.)

I would have done more of this stuff before, but until 6 months ago, we had an obnoxious president that I avoided. This one is nice.

Thanks.

[micky]

Well, I went to HD and this one has no fence supplies at all, and I went looking for another hardware store and couldn't find it.

So I just used the old post and made the whole thing shorter. (There's another one where the cylinder sits on the ground.)

I think the reason the post was in two pieces is that it would originally been over 7 feet tall otherwise and would have required lifting the sledge way above one's head.

(I see it ships with two 4-foot poles, The other reasons is to take up less space in storage, and the factoriy and in stores, and make shipping easier. )

The cylinder had 3 holes tat the top and 3 at the bottom, 2 of them oblong, easy to find two holes to attach with. The bag dispenser had two holes 6" apart. But, and I didn't notice this when I was taking the tthing apart, the sign at the top had its two holes 4.4 inches apart or so, so the sign had to bulge out when screwed to the metal post with holes every inch.

This company makes it and this looks like it

except for the sand and the ocean. We don't have that.

It has some device, not apparent in the picture, where you can see right through the cyclinder without any plastic bag in the way, that does a good job of holding the big plastic bag in place.

I think they charge extra for the ocean.