Can we settle this debate about post hole depth for gate posts?

I keep seeing guys set gate posts at 24 inches deep on standard 4 foot gates. Then I see other crews going 36 inches minimum no matter what. I just had a job in Phoenix where the soil is rocky clay and I went 30 inches on a 5 foot gate. The gate is holding fine but my buddy swears I'm wasting labor. What depth do you use for a typical gate post and why? Has anyone had a gate sag because they didn't go deep enough?

2 comments

2 Comments

morganhayes21d ago

Go 36 inches every time and don't think twice about it. I've seen way too many sagging gates from guys cutting corners on depth, especially in rocky soil where the post can't grab right. The extra 6-12 inches of labor is nothing compared to having to dig the whole thing up and redo it a year later. On a 5 foot gate like yours, 30 inches might hold for now but wind and daily use will test it. Save yourself the headache and just go deeper from the start.

singh.jessica21d ago

@morganhayes has a good point about the redo factor. That's the part that gets me. I set a 4 foot gate in some hard caliche soil outside Tucson a few summers back. Went 24 inches because the ground was brutal to dig. Nine months later that gate was dragging so bad you had to lift it to close it. Had to pull the whole assembly and go back to 30 inches. The extra hour of digging upfront would have saved me a whole afternoon of fixing it later.

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