I purchased an acre of industrial land this May with the intention of using it as my yard. I need to put up about 900 LF of chain link fence and some gates though. I own a TB260 mini ex and a TL10 CTL. I have never done fencing before but from my research I gather that a 6" auger bit is used for the line posts and a 9" bit is used for the corner and gate posts. The holes have to be 2' deep and theoretically where I am at in Camp Verde it is a river bed and an auger should get it. Question is do I purchase an auger attachment I will probably never use again for anything else, ($2500 - $3500)? Renting just the attachment is not an option because of hydraulic cross contamination like with breakers. Renting a skid steer and auger is about $550 per day plus picking it up... Looking for general advice regarding fence post augering thanks.
https://tucson.craigslist.org/hvo/d/tucson-skid-steer-auger/7521464134.html This was just posted second hand on craigslist. Are the Bobcat brand augers any worse than something from Skid steer solutions or blue diamond? I kinda figure they're all made out of the same chinesium parts and seals.
If your worried about contamination, flush the rental before use. Hook up the pressure line, take the quick connect off the return, stick hose in a bucket, run a couple gallons of fluid thru. Replace coupler, fill your resivor and go drill holes. Ed
It is the rental co's policy not mine
I'd look for a different rental company. I have rented augers many times before I finally purchased my own. If you are just doing chain link, a 6" auger should be fine for everything. Most chain link fences use something like 2" pipe for line posts and 2.5" for corner posts. I use a 9" drill for about 90% of all the fence posts I do, but I use retired wood power poles or 2 3/8" oilfield pipe for nearly everything. All the implements Bobcat makes (or has made for them) are on the higher end of quality. I don't think it really matters for something like an auger, mine is a no name brand one I picked up at one of those implement yards. It has done everything I have ever needed of it and you would be hard pressed to find land with more rocks than mine. I set 1 - 2 bags of concrete in every post. Many people will tell you that just tamping in the line posts with dirt is good enough, but that has never been my experience. I also stop filling the hole with concrete about 4" from the surface and fill in the top with dirt after the concrete is dry. If you bring it all the way to the surface, over time you will have the concrete showing at the surface which makes a problem for livestock, if applicable, or at least a pain for the weed eater.
Jbradly is spot on for advice, I'd also rent an auger if you don't know of anyone you can borrow one from. When we used to rent a lot of attachments, I've had problems in the past with contamination issues as well, that was how I solved that issue, just hooked up a filter head and filter and bolted it to the loader frame close to the couplers and added a short piece of hose and a second coupler to the filter head and just hooked up the attachment to that, simple cheap and quick. Once we were done with that attachment, we'd just take the filter head and filter off the skid steer, toss away the filter and install a new one for the next use. Just a thought for a simple idea to save a lot of problems. The filter heads were about 50 bucks and the filters were usually 20 something a piece, pretty cheap in today's age compared to oil prices and any metal or junk floating around in your hydraulics and what that costs to fix your skid steer.
Thanks, this is answers all my questions.
We've bare rented augers before too, but there's more options for rental houses in metro phx then out by you. I agree on flushing all rental attachments too. That quick cure sakcrete has done great on posts for us, fence, small pipe supports, signs. Dump it dry and one of us hits it with a hose or a water trailer and piece of rebar.
United Rentals will rent just attachments, I think they are pretty much everywhere. Even if you had to rent the machine to run the auger for the day it is a whole lot less money out than buying an attachment for one use.