{"id":68,"date":"2012-06-29T10:48:56","date_gmt":"2012-06-29T14:48:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/?p=68"},"modified":"2016-01-27T16:39:32","modified_gmt":"2016-01-27T21:39:32","slug":"concrete-for-fence-post-holes-to-mix-or-not-to-mix","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/concrete-for-fence-post-holes-to-mix-or-not-to-mix\/","title":{"rendered":"Concrete for Fence Post Holes – To Mix or Not to Mix?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"To<\/a>
To Mix or Not to Mix? That is the Question!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I get this question a lot from customers that have an installer doing their fence.\u00a0 The installer walks up to a post hole, tosses in a bag’s worth of dry concrete mix, adds a little water on top and claims it will set on its own below grade with the moisture from the ground.\u00a0 So, the questions I get is ‘that the proper way to do it?’.\u00a0 The short answer is ‘no’.<\/p>\n

\"Mixed<\/a>
Mixed Concrete in a Fence Post Hole<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Any concrete producer will tell you that it should be mixed wet and then poured.\u00a0 Concrete trucks drive around with mixing wet product for a reason.\u00a0 Think of it this way.\u00a0 You can toss eggs, milk, flour and sugar into a cake pan unmixed, cook it and get something that sort of resembles cake.\u00a0 However, its realistically going to be a few cakey spots with blobs of dry flour and sugar.\u00a0 Whereas if you mix it, the cake comes out evenly cooked (and probably tasting a lot better).\u00a0 So, the short answer is:<\/p>\n

MIX AND POUR YOUR POST HOLE CONCRETE<\/strong><\/em><\/h2>\n

Now, I can already hear folks crying ‘FOUL’ on me steering you from the dry-bag method. \u00a0I do agree that the dry-bag method will mix to an extent and hold. \u00a0Your fence posts are not going to fall over with this method, but you will never know until a problem surfaces.<\/p>\n

I have dug up obvious dry-bag post footings. \u00a0You will find a solid concrete top, but as you pull it out of the ground, the lower portion is probably going to be drier and brittle.<\/p>\n

As for the whole ‘it will wick moisture from the ground’ in the dry-bag method, that is true to a certain extent.\u00a0 Once that outer surface hardens, water is probably not going to get a whole lot further in.\u00a0 It also depends on how wet your ground is.\u00a0 I know its so dry up here in Ohio that my yard is cracking in places.\u00a0 So there is probably not a whole lot of moisture for that cement to absorb until enough rain fall penetrates down there.\u00a0 Given the rain fall this year, that isn’t something I would want to chance waiting on!<\/p>\n

So, when in doubt, MIX AND POUR your cement.\u00a0 That is how the concrete producers envision it being used and its what we advise here at Iron Fence Shop\u00ae as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I get this question a lot from customers that have an installer doing their fence.\u00a0 The installer walks up to a post hole, tosses in a bag’s worth of dry concrete mix, adds a little<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,29,26,27],"tags":[40,49,98,62,38],"class_list":["post-68","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aluminum-fence-installation","category-driveway-walk-gate-installation","category-installation","category-wrought-iron-fence-installation","tag-aluminum-fence","tag-concrete","tag-driveway-gate","tag-installation","tag-iron-fence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":844,"href":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68\/revisions\/844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ironfenceshop.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}