Artificial turf post holes just got cleaner and easier to dig. The Vacuum Assisted Holey-Moley Post Hole Digger now makes digging artificial turf post holes for a rod iron gate clean and easy. Now the Holey-Moley Post Hole Digger sucks up dirt as you dig eliminating the requirement of putting down a drop cloth or transferring the dirt to a wheelbarrow. Any small amount of dirt that ends up on the turf is easily cleaned up with the same shop vacuum used to dig the hole.
Digging Artificial Turf Post Holes
by Titus Nelson, PE
Inventor of the Holey-Moley Digger
Rod Iron Gate Project
A neighbor friend of mine wanted to start his Rod Iron Gate project which he dreaded doing. When I asked him about it, he said that digging artificial turf post holes was his worst nightmare. First he needed to cut a hole in the turf which always looked bad. Second, digging the hole spreads the dirt around and it is always hard to clean up. Whenever he used water to wash the turf off, it created mud. Finally his wife seemed to always get mad in the middle of the project. Lastly, her madness evolved around the mess and elevated the stress level. He needed help, so I told him about my Holey-Moley Post Hole Digger available at Cat 6 Tools, LLC and suggested he try it.
The Digger Head
The digger head is 4-inches in diameter and the hole is about right for a rod iron post. I assured him that there wouldn’t be any mess because the shop vacuum sucks up all the dirt. I assured him that he would easily be able to clean up small amounts of dirt spillage with the shop vacuum. In addition, he would finish the job before his wife knew it. It didn’t take much egging to get him to begin. Before long I was carting my digger and shop vacuum across the street to help him out.
Easy Steps installing artificial turf post holes
My friend had the posts ready to go and we cut some small circles in the turf about 4 inches in diameter. The diameter of the Holey-Moley Digger head is 4-inches and it easily pressed through the artificial turf hole. I started up the vacuum and he started rotating the digger back and forth about 45 degrees. It took about 90 seconds to dig down 2 feet. He pulled the digger out of the hole (a small amount of dirt fell onto the turf) and he stuck the vacuum hose into the hole to clean it out.
Dumbfounded
My neighbor was dumbfounded. He couldn’t believe how fast and easy it was to dig the hole, and to his surprise, and mine, there was no mess. Well, he finished digging the remaining holes and he had a kick doing it. Forget the old days of rotating those back wrenching hand augers. We both actually had fun marveling at how easy the hole digging process was. Here is a picture of the only dirt that was spilled out of the hole.
As you can see with the digger in the hole, the actual diameter of the hole in the artificial turf fits close to the 2-inch diameter suction pipe. On the second hole we hit a bit of wet ground that stuck in the digger head a bit but we pulled the digger out and poked it a few times with a screwdriver and the dirt went right up the suction line. We were back at it and finished in no time. All four holes took less than 5 minutes of digging.
The close tolerance and small diameter turf post hole meant we were not going to use much concrete.
The digger handle is 5 feet long putting the handle at shoulder height for the start and at 3 feet when we hit bottom depth of the turf post hole under the artificial turf.
Pouring the concrete slurry into the hole was easy through a funnel. The slurry easily flows through the funnel below the artificial turf. In no time we had a great looking fence with no mess. The smile on everyone’s face showed the pleasure.
The Holey-Moley Digger is manufactured for Cat 6 Tools, LLC by Keene Engineering in Chatsworth, CA. Keene Engineering has been making quality mining equipment for over 70 years.