Building a pergola on a budget

[sweetbriarcornermarket]

I am wanting to build two identical pergolas in front of my greenhouses approximately 20' x 26' to expand my retail space. Here's what I have to work with, no budget, I'm an old woman, no help, but I do have a tractor with an loader bucket, chainsaw and a pile of used 12" 40 foot long utility poles and will try anything once, okay maybe more than once. My first question, 12" auger on post digger, 12" poles and we all know that just doesn't work. These poles, albe they 40 years old are in good condition. How much will I shorter the life of them if I take my chainsaw and square up the bottom 40" to about an 8" post? Anyone ever tried this? Thought I could even dig the top six inches of the hole 24" and fill around pole with sakrete? I'll be setting 9 poles per pergola, cutting them to about 13 foot lengths.

 

[sweetbriarcornermarket]

I should add that when I erected the greenhouses I had to have a dozen level the site, red clay and might I add the operator did a superb job at packing the newly moved fill. So making those 12" holes bigger, yeah.

 

[kd3pc]

If you are only needing 13' lengths...add 3 or 4' to the length, to get that in the ground, and you should be down to the under 12" diameter you need to use the current auger.

Be careful cutting telephone poles with a chain saw....they are often fraught with metal staples, nails, etc and those tend to fly back and in to your soft parts, dulling the chain in the process.

Filling in the top 6" with sacrete will do nothing to help stabilize the pole.

Best of luck, just do some measurements, dig your holes, get inspection and set the poles. Best to get the inspection before dropping in the poles, as even with a bucket/tractor, pulling the poles back out are a LOT of work, as compared to placing them. Been there and had to remove them for the inspector to stick his tape in to confirm depth...and yes there was plenty of room to do that with out pulling the poles...but he was the man, and let me know that.