Holes for posts

That's fascinating Chris, many thanks.

Bert

Thanks for that - a very interesting video.

Purely decorative (or at least not holding back any animal life) and with posts 30" high. By the one-third rule that seems to suggest just 10" in the ground, which sounds pretty minimal. I might go a bit deeper than that, ground conditions permitting.

Bert

That's my weapon of choice, along with a demolition crowbar

Same here. I got the digger based, IIRC, on your recommendation, then relised that slighly stoney clay was a bit too much for it. Got out the ancient crowbar and jut broke up the soil and scooped it out. The crowbar is double ended: one is a point and the other a slightly angled chisel, so more versatile than a straight one.

depends

Aye, I think 10" / 30" is probably about the point where the linear

I would think you could just hammer them in to that depth.

Thanks for all the new replies. The long-handled digger seems to be emerging as the favourite, rather than the auger which was my first instinctive choice. I'll look at both.

Bert

You can never have too many tools. Get them both, and the crowbar (much more useful than you might at first think).

Before this conversation, I thought that a crowbar was a shortish affair with a slightly angled chisel-like blade at one end and a curved hook at the other. Obviously not.

Thanks for the advice.

Bert

I think that's a jemmy.

Desmond & I call ours 'the toothpick' :-)

or a wrecking bar(?)

We had to do this many years ago.The ground had been backfilled with a mixt ure of tailings and large rocks. We used a petrol driven auger. Two man job . It will kick like a mule when its hits an obstruction but if you keep at it it will do the job. You might have to withdraw it occasionally to remove a rock but thats no biggie.Just make sure that there is plenty of room if it kicks back, It could pin you against a wall very easily. Be happy becaus e in the end your posts are going to be firmly held

Well, I'm now back from Wickes/Toolstation armed with a post-hole digger and a demolition crowbar, the second of which surprised me both by its weight, which is considerable, and by having its non-pointed end bent over at an angle: not only does it not look like that in the website illustration, one of the customer reviews talks about bashing it home with a sledgehammer, which sounds quite tricky. But we'll see.

Fred, thanks for the petrol-driven auger suggestion, but as you can see I've decided to try the manual route, at least to begin with.

Bert