Three days into a privacy fence install and I hit a rock shelf that took 6 hours to beat through

I was setting posts for a 6-foot cedar privacy fence outside Eugene last Tuesday and about 4 feet down my auger just locked up on this massive basalt shelf. Ended up having to rent a demolition hammer and chip away at it for a whole afternoon, completely blowing my timeline for the week. Anybody else run into hidden rock like that and have a faster way to deal with it?

2 comments

2 Comments

luna2619d ago

I just fought through something similar last summer, did you try wetting the ground around the rock before you started hammering? Soggy soil absorbs some of the vibration and makes the demolition hammer work way better in my experience. I had this one spot near a creek bed where the auger hit a chunk of old concrete from like the 1950s, took me two full days of cursing and chipping. Ended up just pouring water around it every hour and letting it soak for 15 minutes before going back at it, saved me maybe an hour or two of pure misery. Also if you've got access to a jackhammer attachment for a skid steer those things eat through basalt way faster than handheld stuff. By the way did you check if there's any utility lines running through that area before you went deep with the hammer?

oliviabutler9d ago

Read a forestry blog that said wetting the ground works great for big rocks, @luna261.