Building pipe fence and concrete

[KCF6Ranch]

I will be starting to build some pipe pens to work our cattle in the next few weeks. Estimating 80+ pipe posts to set and a concrete pad for the chute. And I'll be doing the build in phases so won't be pouring all concrete at once. Concrete from plant is only slightly cheaper than buying bagged concrete and mixing it. We are fairly remote and it's about $200 just for concrete delivery. I'm thinking of getting a concrete mixer to run off the PTO of the tractor (tractor is 80+ pto HP). This way I can mix concrete at my own pace. I'm sure I'll have future pipe fence to build as well.

What have others done to mix concrete vs. pre-mixed ? I do have loader on tractor and skidload but would rather not use those to mix the concrete in. Thanks.

 

[SDiver40]

We always poured bag concrete in the hole dry. It will absorb moisture out of the ground and get just as hard. No need to tie up the post either. Just tamp down and move to the next. Give it a week or so and it should be setup.

 

[bdog]

We built a lot of pipe fence at my place. I estimate close to 500 posts with each set with two 80 lb bags of quickcrete. We had a 18' flatbed tongue pull trailer and we mounted a harbor freight cement mixer on the front. I had a small generator that would power the mixer. I used a 24 gallon weed sprayer tank for the water attached to a car battery. I took the trailer to town and bought two pallets of quickcrete (42 bags per pallet) at a time and had them load it on the trailer. I had a three man crew on the concrete trailer. One guy would take the quickcrete straight from the pallet to the mixer never getting off the trailer and would mix it and dump into five gallon buckets. The other two guys leveled the posts and and poured the buckets of concrete in the hole. On most runs you could get the trailer right by the hole so they were not carrying the concrete far. The posts were also carried on the same trailer. We had a hydraulic auger working ahead of them drilling holes and two portable welders.

An average day they used up both pallets of concrete and set 42 posts.

I have heard lots of people talk about the dry concrete way of doing it but I don't think it works as good. If I am spending the money on pipe for fence and for concrete I will take the extra few minutes to add the water, mix it up and do it right.

 

[DT86]

Dear Lord, you are working too hard.

 

[breadtrk]

We built a lot of pipe fence at my place. I estimate close to 500 posts with each set with two 80 lb bags of quickcrete. We had a 18' flatbed tongue pull trailer and we mounted a harbor freight cement mixer on the front. I had a small generator that would power the mixer. I used a 24 gallon weed sprayer tank for the water attached to a car battery. I took the trailer to town and bought two pallets of quickcrete (42 bags per pallet) at a time and had them load it on the trailer. I had a three man crew on the concrete trailer. One guy would take the quickcrete straight from the pallet to the mixer never getting off the trailer and would mix it and dump into five gallon buckets. The other two guys leveled the posts and and poured the buckets of concrete in the hole. On most runs you could get the trailer right by the hole so they were not carrying the concrete far. The posts were also carried on the same trailer. We had a hydraulic auger working ahead of them drilling holes and two portable welders.

An average day they used up both pallets of concrete and set 42 posts.

I have heard lots of people talk about the dry concrete way of doing it but I don't think it works as good. If I am spending the money on pipe for fence and for concrete I will take the extra few minutes to add the water, mix it up and do it right.

Yeah, but what did you do after breakfast?

 

[Xfaxman]

I will be starting to build some pipe pens to work our cattle in the next few weeks. Estimating 80+ pipe posts to set and a concrete pad for the chute. And I'll be doing the build in phases so won't be pouring all concrete at once. Concrete from plant is only slightly cheaper than buying bagged concrete and mixing it. We are fairly remote and it's about $200 just for concrete delivery. I'm thinking of getting a concrete mixer to run off the PTO of the tractor (tractor is 80+ pto HP). This way I can mix concrete at my own pace. I'm sure I'll have future pipe fence to build as well.

What have others done to mix concrete vs. pre-mixed ? I do have loader on tractor and skidload but would rather not use those to mix the concrete in. Thanks.

Over the last 30 years I have had to remove some posts that were set in dry mix. The concrete was setup as hard as if it had been poured from a mixer truck.

I don't know where Crawford is, but here in the red clay it is no problem to set pipe posts with dry concrete.

 

[EddieWalker]

I've replace quite a few posts and from what I've been told, every one of them where set with dry mix concrete. I do the same in all my posts. The reason I replaced the posts is they rot out if the concrete does not go above the surrounding ground. If this happens, water sits at the base of the post and rots out the wood, or rusts out the pipe. If you build it up, it sheds water away from the post and you never have any problems.

Eddie

 

[bdog]

A lot of this is location specific. If you are in an area with a lot of rain and soils that are always moist the dry method may work. Here is a borderline desert. When I dig a post hole there is dust coming out pretty much the whole way down. I don't think it would work here but I don't know about other places. I was doing a job over towards Dallas and drilled a bunch of 10' holes and the soil was very moist sticking to the auger. In those conditions you may very well be able to pour the mix in dry and it work but then as Eddie said if you have that much moisture rot / rust are likely concerns and you may need to build up around the posts to divert water. To each their own but I see just dumping it in without mixing a lazy way of doing things.

 

[roadhunter]

Crawford NE?

 

[Citydude]

I'd buy the 3pt mixer. You could always sell it if you find no more uses for it later on.