I bet this is the daftest question posted in here for a while!
I need to set a 4 inch square, 2 metre high, metal post into the ground. The ground is soil. The post will have a switch mounted on the side at the top, and as such the post will be subjected to daily stress from people pushing the switch.
The post has been put into the ground by someone in the past, with very little cement. I think the combination of insufficent cement and lack of depth into the soil has caused the post to become loose. I am thinking of using concrete this time, but I have no idea how to make it.
What are the proportions for sand, cement and ballast.
Highly variable! Buy a pack of ready mix for a job like this, or else get three bags of sand, one of cement, and about 3-6 bags of assorted crushed rock :-)
The real secret is going deep enough actually. I'd say a couple of feet if you can manage it. Use a pickaxe if all eslse fails.
Assuming they continue to practice their pleasures only in the way described then there's no doubt at all that they will be removed from the gene pool - in a single generation.
Andrew
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-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have a butt page story for you, but, unfortunately, no documentary evidence. The story was told me by my brother, who used to lodge with a nurse. It is the nurse's story. About five years ago an old WW2 veteran used to come into a hospital clinic in the east end of London suffering from bad haemorroids (piles). The clinic did what they could, but they could never relieve the most painful pile, which would hang down and get stuck on the seam of the man's underpants. To rid himself of the nuisance of this pile, the old man used to push it back up into his rectum using the artillery shell from an anti-aircraft gun he used to man in the war. One day the shell got stuck and the man was forced to hobble down to the hospital to get it removed. As the doctor was about to insert his fingers into the old man's rectum to remove the shell he said 'Of course, this shell is spent, isn't it?' 'Oh no,' said the old man 'There's enough ammo in that shell to blast a Messerschmidt (sp?) out of the sky.' So the doctor called in the army bomb squad, who built a lead box around the old man's asshole and defused the shell in situ, before removing it. A good little story for VE day, I thought. -- Melanie McGrath
Close but no cigar!
I doubt that the shell was of such a calibre -if it was a true story to start with as anti aircraft shells fired from the ground were quite a size. The shells fired from a plane of WW II vintage, at .50" calibre were the size of cigars so perhaps.....?
Here, where winter freezing of the ground, depending on amount of snow cover, can be a problem it is recommended that the cement not be brought up to ground level. Also that it not be in the shape of an inverted cone. I.e. as you dig the hole for the post there is a tendency for it to be wider at top than lower down. So, and it does happen here, even without posts in cement 'plugs' in the ground is that the frost can 'heave' the plug/post upwards and after a while you have a post even with a heavy accretion of concrete on it, loose in the ground or even lifting out of the ground after a 'hard' winter! My daughter's deck (wooden posts not cemented) is suffering in that way now; and a neighbour's ended with the outer edge of their deck with PT wooden posts not set deep enough, about six inches higher than next to the house, which had posts that didn't freeze (or heave) to the same extent! Just a suggestion anyway. Go deep and concrete the 'bottom' of the post. And maybe use a cross-piece attached to the post set in the ground? Terry.
I've always believed in lining the bottom of the post hole with a couple of centimetres of gravel (fine stone), and concreting on top of that.
The reason for that approach is to give the bottom of the fencepost, and the concrete collar, a chance to be mounted on top of material which isn't soaked in water - the gravel acts as a small soakaway.
If the post has a ready supply of water available to it (which it will if it joins damp earth) then the water will gradually migrate into the post which will eventually fail due to it being soggy.
Works for me anyway :)
Andrew
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