Digging deep in hard ground

[101927700]

Hey everyone. Recently I've been thinking about making a mud pit that I can sink up to my chest in (don't want to go under just yet). However, the deepest I've ever been able to dig is to about thigh-deep because the ground is really hard, like clay or something, after about a foot down. In addition, the space I have for a pit is limited and my goal is to get a chest-deep pit that is probably two or three feet across. Does anyone know of any equipment that makes it easier to dig through hard ground in limited spaces? Excavators and jackhammers are too large-scale for my purposes. Tomorrow I'll post a pic of the space I have to work with.

[Fred588]

Hey everyone. Recently I've been thinking about making a mud pit that I can sink up to my chest in (don't want to go under just yet). However, the deepest I've ever been able to dig is to about thigh-deep because the ground is really hard, like clay or something, after about a foot down. In addition, the space I have for a pit is limited and my goal is to get a chest-deep pit that is probably two or three feet across. Does anyone know of any equipment that makes it easier to dig through hard ground in limited spaces? Excavators and jackhammers are too large-scale for my purposes. Tomorrow I'll post a pic of the space I have to work with.

You will probably have to go a bit larger than described in order to get useful leverage on a shovel. A pick might be useful for breaking up hard ground but again it needs room to swing. A six foot wrecking bar will be essential if you encounter layers of rock.

[Mynock]

Because the hole is so narrow and deep a long prybar like Fred describes would be your best choice. A pick might help for the first foot or two but past that won't have any room to swing.
Sucks that you don't have the room for one of those mini excavators, could could have a hole that size dug in about an hour even with the learning curve.

[H8ms2014]

Dynamite, Mines, Hand Grenades, or huge firecrackers

[Fred588]

There is a post in the Studio 588, dated today, forum that address some of this question indirectly.

[efs1845]

I have the same problem I use either a small rototiller [ mantis ] ore a post hole auger

[Fred588]

Here at the Studio, the first one to two feet is fairly easy, mostly clay. It can be packed fairly hard but if you did when it is not baked into brink it goes fairly easily, except the roots in the top foot or so. But then you hit a layer of sand stone or something like it, maybe an inch thick. Then several more layers that get progressively harder and thicker. Somewhere between three and four feet down you have to use a heavy wrecking bar to pond the sandstone until you hit a fracture and it breaks. And then you hit a layer you cannot break with a bar. In some places this layer is only 3 feet down and the only way to salvage the work is to use the spoil or other fill to build up a platform around the hole. In other places you can get down four feet or perhaps a little more. I expect I would get deeper using a back hoe but how much deeper is unknown. When they built the addition to the house three summers ago they had to use a sort of giant pounding device, lifted and dropped with a back hoe to get the extra depth needed for the inside tornado shelter/wine cellar.