UPDATE/PROBLEM: advice to build a wooden fence?

[Spencer278]

Deeper can't hurt. The deeper the fence the less it will want to tip or move. Make sure that when you are packing the dirt in around the fence that your post are level.

 

[GRIFFIN1]

42" deep holes are hard to dig with manual post hole diggers. You have to spread the handles apart to grap the dirt from the bottom of the hole, but it gets hard to spread the handles as you go deeper because the handles will hit the sides of the hole.

We dug 36" deep holes for the fence I helped build 20 years ago. It's still standing.

This site says 24" deep holes.

 

[teckmaster]

18 to 24 inches should be more than enough

 

[CTR]

Do you have any buried utilities in your area? If so, call and get them to come out and mark their cable paths. Then take pics of what they marked.

A friend of mine was replacing a wooden fence, and used a power auger to dig out the existing post holes to a greater depth. As it turned out, the telephone path was marked incorrectly, and a 50-pair cable that was buried about an inch under one of the existing holes was chewed up by the auger. Phone service for his entire neighborhood was out for 4 hours. The guys from the phone company were REALLY pissed about having to dig a huge hole and patch up the cable. They told him he would be getting a bill for their labor. He snapped some pics of the incorrectly marked cable path, but by that time the paint was pretty hard to see due to all the digging and stomping around for the cable repair.