Need to do some digging in the crawlspace for temporary piering. Have 3-5′ of clearance. Digging sure would be a lot better if I had a approximate 4″ x 24″ post hole type auger, but one that could chuck in a drill. Does such a beast exists? Is it a HD or Lowe’s item or elsewhere? What kind of drill would drive it? I have a monster dewalt right angle drill, but I might need a rotary hammer?
MERC
Replies
i have a 1-1/2" rotary hammer ... would use spade bit.
That's how I did mine -- with a Bosch 11236 and the wide spade. The ground here is very dry adobe, distinguishable from concrete mainly by the darker color and absence of aggregate. ;-)
The pictures might still be in the photo gallery under "New footing in the middle of the house".
-- J.S.
Did the same thing once and found it was worth cutting the handles down on actual posthole diggers and a spade.
I drilled some 2" holes several feet deep into pretty soft sandstone underlying my property by just using an old rusty extended 4' wood auger bit that I had lying around. You can get the auger bits at most big tool supply stores, but I don't know how big they go. The problem with the wood bit is that you don't have the spiral going all the way up, so you have to raise up the bit frequently to lift the dirt out.
Most rental companies have one or two man post hole diggers that probably have dirt augers that go down to 4". The problem would be that they are pretty heavy to be dragging around under a house and, since all I have seen have been gasoline powered, you would be breathing exhaust in an enclosed space.
Edited 11/4/2003 9:36:59 PM ET by CaseyR
I did it with a milwakee hole hawg and a mobile home tie down that i cut shorter
Depends whether you have any rocks or its really nice dirt. I've found it faster to loosen the dirt with a small demo hammer and long bit, then shovel it out. The augers get caught on every little thing.