We just placed an offer and are now under contract on a 3 acre property and the wife wants to fence it all. The land is on the mountain and the property is certainly rocky. When the lot was cleared they pushed plenty of 2-3’ boulders to the edge of the lot. Obviously, no auger is getting through that, but will the HF deal work for me?  I’ll need to dig about 100 - 3’ deep holes (1500’ of fence with 15’ spacing). The auger is on sale right now and I’d buy the 21” extension to make life a bit easier. The other option is renting a bigger piece of equipment, but I’ll be rushed and it won’t be nearly as cheap. ($400/week vs $189 for the HF auger and $20 for the extension).  I’m torn...as I’m all about buying tolls as I need them since it usually ends up being cheaper in the end, but if it’s going to be worthless I don’t want to waste the money. Any input is appreciated.

I bought one some years ago and doesn't dig well at all.

Look at the angle of the HARDENED ends of the auger and they 'float' on hard soil.

I tried altering them with all sorts of tools and a diamond cup on a hand grinder slowly cuts the metal and is far faster than carbide. The cutters are probably carbide.

Wouldn't buy another. The reviews are crap. Maybe pouring water in the hole will soften it so the auger will cut.

We have a skid steer and I bought at auction a hydraulic motor and 12" auger for it and finally installed it this year and it is a dream.

Maybe consider renting one.

100 with that thing?

Rent a piece of equipment (tractor or excavator) with the auger attachment. You may find, as I did, that having a machine for big jobs is such a time saver as to be worth it.

I just bought a tractor and will rent attachments as needed.

I agree, rent one.  Unless the whole area is flat do not rent the walk behind, you will kill your back using it on a slope.  Trust me.

You are going to be hating life after a few holes, much less 100.  I don't have the HF model, but do have a similar one made by Earthquake.  Mine is the "2-man" version, so it may be a little bit bigger.  As far as digging holes is concerned, soil needs to be almost perfect....soft, no roots, and absolutely no rocks.  Even then, its a damned workout.  I would ABSOLUTELY rent whatever you could, it will be much easier and take considerably less time.

I’m all about using projects as an excuse to buy tools. But in this case I’d for sure rent a bobcat with an auger and knock this out pdq. With the rental you’ll be done before you know it. The HF auger will take forever and your back will feel it for a long time.  This is such a limited use item I’d rent and get it done so you can move on.

My BIL has one I used to dig a couple of holes for the platforms that house my water tanks.

It smokes like a stripper between lap dances and is not expedient at digging holes. I hated doing 10, much less 100.

Rent a tractor or skid steer IMO.

Just an FYI you should probably plan for more holes than that. 1,500 feet assumes everything is perfectly straight and level.

Rocky soil i would not dig or pound fence posts. Spent plenty of time trying.

Aunt and uncle alway did the above ground wooden or steel posts so they would not have to dig.

You will be cussing that auger by the 2nd hole.

If you do t want to rent a big machine at minimum rent a Ground hog
That’s is as small as I would go.

I love it when people try to go as cheap as possible on things when clearly you should not.
I understand cheapness, but ONLY when its acceptable.

if its possible to rent a skid / auger do that. or buy it and sell it later.

What kind of posts are you putting in?

3 1/2” pressure treated.

Why not just use T posts? You can pound those in.

I just finished fencing in about 4.5 acres and used maybe 100 of them, maybe more no idea. I did put 4x6 on the corners with 1 4x6 on each side braced diagonally to keep the corner strong.

I did use 2 rolls of cattle fence but then by the house used 3 rolls 330' long  4' high goat and sheep woven wire and it looks much better than the cattle wire though it was $250 a roll vs $140 for the cattle wire.

Dog is happy.

Thats a good point.  Dont they make hydraulic or gas powered portable drivers for T posts?

Don't know what the ground is like there, at my place the ground would kick back with a beer and a smoke and tell me to fuck off with that thing.

I have one I bought to dig post holes for a deck I put in this summer.  Also used for a few other projects already.  It worked well and I don't have perfect soil, it dug out smaller rocks and kept on ticking.

Mainly because the wood posts will look a little nicer. I’m not opposed to using T posts in the back of the property, but along the driveway and near the house I’d like to stick with wood posts.

I gotta go against the current with this one.

To put my opinion into perspective- We farm quite a bit of acreage and have tractor and bobcat powered augers and drivers.

We bought one of the HF augers to use when we were replacing posts on a section of fence that butted up to several of our neighbors yards. The fence was still good, so we didn't want to take it down to set new posts, and we didn't want to drive through their yards with heavy equipment, so we ended up trying one of these out. I've been pretty impressed with it for digging a hole here or there. I've never had it "stuck" and in my experience it chews right through the soil we have around here. Not sure I'd want to do 100 of them with it. Which brings me to my next piece of advise...

We dig the holes for our end posts and set them in concrete. There should be two at every end and joint section of fence. The posts in between are called line posts, and we drive all those. I believe that is actually preferred over digging them. Those go quickly once you get into the groove. I'm betting in a couple of days you could have those driven.

Just my .02