hole depth for play equipment

Jul 19, 2010 2 Replies

Having looked round the shops and not liked what I see, I'm thinking of building my own play thing for the kids in the back garden. I've been asked for a "Pirate Ship", so it'll essentially be a raised deck in a rough boat shape, but the masts at least will need to be a couple of metres high.



How deep would the post-hole need to be for high posts like that? I suppose, that in the future, I might put some ladder up them for the kids to climb if that makes any difference.



Cheers for any sensible advice!


Working from a fence post backwards; A 6' post needs to be 8' so you can have 2' in the ground, with one bag of post fix/crete.

Knowing how rough little ones can be I'd say that is an absolute bare minimum.

Rule of thumb for telegraph poles was 1/3 total length in the ground. But that is to handle quite serious top loading on the pole, say half a dozen pole arms and 24 open wire pairs.

You can probably drop to 1/4 the total length in the ground for your application.

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