Post Hole Digging Services WA 2026 - Get Quotes

What Post Hole Digging Covers

Post hole digging is the supply of a machine, an operator and the right auger to put a set number of holes into the ground at a nominated diameter and depth. It is bought as a service in its own right by fencing contractors, patio builders, landscapers and homeowners who have the posts and the labour but not the equipment to get holes into hard ground. The contractor arrives, sets out against your marks, drills the line, leaves the spoil where you want it and goes. What happens next, the posts, the concrete, the rails and the panels, is usually somebody else's job. The reason people buy it instead of doing it themselves is almost always the ground.

A handheld auger hired from Kennards or Coates works perfectly well in soft soil and stops completely the moment it touches limestone, and a homeowner with forty holes to drill on a Perth block will spend a weekend discovering that. A machine with real torque behind it turns the same line into a couple of hours. Most of the operators who drill holes also do the rest of what a small machine can do on a suburban block, which the excavation and earthmoving page sets out. The service is priced in one of two ways and the distinction matters. Per hole pricing suits a straightforward line of similar holes in known ground, and hourly or day rate pricing suits anything variable, awkward or unknown. Contractors quoting per hole are carrying the risk of the ground themselves, so they price the risk in, and contractors quoting by the hour are asking you to carry it.

Neither is wrong and the cheaper one depends entirely on what is under your lawn. Setting out is generally the customer's responsibility unless it is agreed otherwise. The contractor drills where the marks are, and if the marks are wrong the holes are wrong, which is an expensive way to learn that a string line and a tape are worth twenty minutes. Where a fence line runs along a boundary, the position of the holes needs to be settled before anybody turns up.

Getting that agreed in advance avoids the single most common argument on these jobs. Spoil is the part people forget to ask about. Every hole produces a pile of material, and on a forty hole fence line that is a genuine volume of sand or clay sitting on the lawn afterwards. Some contractors spread it, some leave it beside each hole, some cart it away for a fee, and the quote should say which.

Settle it beforehand, because it changes what you are left with when the truck leaves. The turnaround is usually fast once the contractor is booked. Most suburban post hole jobs are half a day, a full fence line with gate posts is a day, and rural work is priced by the run instead of the hole. The delay is getting into the diary, not the work itself. Spring and early summer are the busiest period in this trade, for the same reason every other outdoor trade is busy then.

The Jobs That Need It

Fencing is the largest single source of post hole work in Western Australia by a wide margin. A standard suburban boundary runs somewhere between twenty and fifty holes depending on the length and the post spacing, and a fence and gate installation contractor will either drill them as part of the job or bring in somebody who does. Gate posts and end posts need bigger holes than line posts because they carry more load. The fencing page covers the fence types and what each one demands of its footings.

Patio, pergola and carport footings are the next group and they are a different proposition entirely. These holes are wider, deeper and subject to engineering, because the structure above them has to resist wind uplift, not simply stand up. A pergola or a patio and verandah job will have a footing size specified on the approved drawings, and that specification is what the auger works to. Getting it wrong is not a cosmetic problem. Carports sit in the same category and they are frequently underestimated. A carport spanning two vehicles carries a significant roof area, and the footings that hold the posts down in a Perth wind event are sized for that.

The holes for a carport installation are usually 450 millimetres or wider and several hundred deep. That is excavator auger work, well beyond what a handheld unit will manage. Shade sails generate more post hole enquiries than most people expect. A shade sail is a tensioned structure, the posts are in permanent tension instead of compression, and the footings are correspondingly large, often a cubic metre of concrete or close to it on a big span. Homeowners who price a sail and then discover the footing cost are routinely surprised.

The hole is a real part of that job, not an afterthought. Decking and raised outdoor structures need holes for stumps and bearer posts. A decking job over sloping ground in the hills can involve dozens of holes at varying depths, set out to a grid instead of a line, and a machine with an operator who can work to a plan saves an enormous amount of time. Hand digging a deck on a slope is miserable work. It is also slow enough that the machine pays for itself within the first few holes. Smaller domestic jobs come up constantly and they are worth naming because people do not realise they can buy the service for one or two holes.

A rotary clothesline, a letterbox, a basketball ring, a flagpole, a garden arch, a mailbox on a rural driveway and a single replacement fence post all need one properly dug hole. Most contractors have a minimum charge that covers a short visit. Combining several small items into one attendance is how to make it economic. Pool barriers have their own requirements and they are not negotiable.

Pool fencing in Western Australia is a safety barrier regulated under building law and inspected by the local government, the post spacings and footings are specified, and a barrier that moves is a barrier that fails. The holes for it are drilled to the manufacturer's specification, not to whatever looks adequate. Get the specification before the machine arrives. Retaining walls with posts are common across the Perth hills and the newer subdivisions. Timber and steel post retaining systems rely entirely on the depth and diameter of the post holes, because the post below ground is what resists the soil above it, and a retaining wall builder will work from an engineer's detail that specifies both.

These are deep holes, often as deep below ground as the wall is high. Nothing about that dimension is a guess. Rural and semi rural work is a category of its own. Boundary fencing on a Wheatbelt property, internal paddock divisions, stock yards, vineyard and orchard rows, gate hangs and sign posts all need holes in quantity, and contractors serving those areas run tractor or truck mounted units that drill a line at walking pace. Strainer and corner assemblies take the biggest holes on the property. A contractor pricing rural work charges by the run, not by the hole.

Signage, bollards and security posts round out the list. Real estate signs, property entry statements, driveway bollards, gate motor posts for an automatic gate and steel posts protecting a corner in a commercial yard all get drilled the same way. The diameter is usually modest and the depth is what matters. A bollard that has not been set deep enough simply lies down the first time something hits it.

Ground Conditions Across Western Australia

Perth sand is the ground most of this work happens in and it presents its own problem, which is not hardness but the opposite. A clean sand hole will slump the moment the auger comes out, particularly if it is dry, and the wall of a 300 millimetre hole can lose a third of its depth before anybody gets a post into it. Drilling and setting on the same day is the standard answer. Contractors who leave a sand hole open overnight generally come back to a shallower one. The Bassendean sands through the eastern suburbs are deeper, greyer and looser again. Holes in this material collapse readily and the sides give very little support to a post before the concrete goes in, so temporary sleeves or slightly oversized holes with more concrete are the usual approach.

It also drains extremely freely, which is good for the post and awkward for the concrete. If your suburb sits in that belt, find out how the contractor handles it. Tamala limestone is the reason rock augers from makers such as Digga and Auger Torque exist in this state. The caprock runs along the coastal corridor from the northern suburbs through to the southern ones and inland in places, and it turns up at anything from a few hundred millimetres below the surface to well over a metre, sometimes varying across a single fence line.

An auger that was cutting sand at hole eleven can stop dead at hole twelve. The rock breaking page covers what happens when the material is beyond an auger entirely. What limestone does to a quote is the practical issue. A contractor pricing a suburban fence line per hole either builds an allowance in, which makes the price higher for everybody, or quotes on the basis that rock is charged separately when it is struck. The second is more honest and it means the number on the quote is not the final number. Establish which structure you are being given.

A quote with no mention of rock anywhere on a coastal block is a quote that has not thought about it. The Perth Hills bring granite and lateritic gravel and both are genuinely difficult. Granite floaters sit in the soil at unpredictable depths through Kalamunda, Mundaring, Roleystone and the surrounding districts, and a floater the size of a car sitting exactly where a post has to go is not something anybody can see in advance. Hills jobs are almost always quoted hourly for that reason. A contractor offering a firm per hole price in the hills without qualification has either seen the block or is guessing.

Clay is the South West and parts of the Swan Coastal Plain, and it changes with the season. In winter it is workable and holds a hole beautifully, and in February it can be hard enough to slow a machine down considerably and cracked enough that the top of the hole is not solid. Reactive clay also moves with moisture, which is why footing depths in those soils are specified and not assumed. Digging in the wrong season on a clay block costs more.

Water tables sit close to the surface across the low lying parts of the metropolitan area. A hole drilled to a metre in parts of Bayswater, Belmont, Canning Vale or the Peel region can fill with water before anybody gets back to it, and concrete going into a hole with water in it is a different exercise from concrete going into a dry one. Contractors deal with it routinely and they need to know it is coming. Mention it at the quoting stage if you know your block does it. Fill is the wildcard on established properties and it is more common than people think. Old rubble, buried footings, a former driveway, a filled in soakwell, tree roots from something removed decades ago and general building waste from the original construction all sit under lawns across Perth, and an auger finds them the hard way.

Established suburbs give more surprises than new estates. The stump grinding and removal page covers the root mass a removed tree leaves behind. Coastal blocks add corrosion to the list of considerations. The salt laden air along the metropolitan coast and through the South West and Great Southern attacks galvanised and steel components faster than it does inland, which is a post specification issue more than a hole issue, and it does change what goes into the hole. Concrete cover and post treatment both matter more within a couple of kilometres of the water. That is a question for the fencing or structural contractor, not the hole driller.

Depth, Diameter and Footings

Hole diameter is set by what goes in it plus the concrete around it. A standard timber or steel fence post generally wants a hole roughly three times the post width, which puts most suburban fence holes between 200 and 300 millimetres, and a structural post for a patio or carport is usually 450 millimetres or more. The auger is selected to match. Changing diameter mid job means changing the auger, so give the contractor the full list before they load the truck. Depth for a fence post is a rule of thumb and not a standard, and the common starting point is a third of the finished above ground height. A 1.8 metre fence therefore wants around 600 millimetres in the ground, more in loose sand and more again for end and gate posts.

Local conditions and the fence type both move that figure. A contractor who works your suburb regularly will have a number they trust. Structural footings are a different matter entirely because they are engineered, not estimated. Building and planning requirements in this state are administered through local government under legislation published by Western Australian Legislation, with state planning policy sitting with the Department of Planning, Lands and Heritage.

A patio, pergola, carport or verandah that needs a building permit has a footing size on the approved drawings, arrived at by considering the wind classification of the site, the roof area, the soil classification and the post spacing. That number is the one that gets drilled. Nobody on site gets to decide it is deep enough. Wind classification matters more in Western Australia than people appreciate. Much of the state north of Geraldton sits in cyclonic wind regions, the metropolitan area and South West sit in non cyclonic regions with their own classifications, and the difference shows up directly in footing sizes for any roofed structure.

A carport detail from the Pilbara and one from Perth are not interchangeable. The Australian Building Codes Board publishes the construction requirements that sit behind those classifications. Soil classification is the other half of that calculation. Sand, clay and reactive clay all behave differently under a footing, and the classification assigned to a site determines how deep and how wide that footing has to be. It is why a footing detail that worked on a sand block in Mandurah may be inadequate on a clay block in Bunbury. Where a structure is engineered, the detail is site specific by design.

Depth is also a durability question, not only a stability one. A post that is barely in the ground is a post that will move, and once it moves the whole fence or structure begins working at every connection until something gives. The extra hundred millimetres costs very little at the drilling stage. It is the cheapest insurance on the entire job. Belled or stepped holes come up on larger footings.

Where uplift is the governing force, as it is on shade sails and roofed structures, widening the base of the hole gives the concrete more to hold against, and an experienced operator with the right auger can produce that profile. It is specified on a drawing, not improvised on site. If the engineer has drawn it, the contractor needs to see the drawing. Consistency across a run is worth asking about explicitly.

A fence line where every hole is the same depth gives a level top rail and a straight finish, and one where the depths wander gives a fence that looks wrong from the street no matter how good the panels are. Good operators depth check as they go. It costs nothing and it shows in the finished job. A stick cut to the required depth, dropped in each hole, is all the method anybody needs.

Underground Services and Site Safety

Every property in Western Australia has services in the ground and post holes are the classic way to find them. Western Power electricity, Water Corporation water and sewer, ATCO gas, Telstra and NBN Co telecommunications, reticulation mains and private cables to sheds, pools, gate motors and garden lighting all run through the same ground that fence posts and patio footings go into. An auger under power will cut through any of them without the operator noticing. The consequences range from an inconvenient repair bill to something considerably worse. Free service plans are the starting point and every contractor should be getting them. The national referral service run at byda.com.au provides plans from participating asset owners for any site in Australia at no cost, and lodging a request takes a few minutes.

Plans arrive by email, usually within a day or two. Check that the contractor has lodged one, and if the answer is vague, lodge it yourself. Plans have limits that need understanding instead of blind trust. They show the approximate horizontal position of registered assets, they do not reliably show depth, and they show nothing at all about private services installed by previous owners, which on an established property can be extensive. A reticulation main, a cable to a shed or a pool light circuit will not appear on anybody's plan.

That is exactly the material an auger finds. Locating is the next step where the plans show something near the work. A service locator uses electromagnetic and ground penetrating equipment to mark the actual position on the ground, typically for a few hundred dollars, and on a job where a power service crosses the fence line that is money very well spent. The marks then govern how the holes near them are dug.

Get the locating report handed over, not described to you. Hand digging near a marked service is the standard practice and it is not optional. Once a service is marked, holes within the nominated zone either side of it are excavated by hand or with vacuum equipment until the asset is exposed and confirmed, and only then does anybody go deeper. That is slower and it is charged accordingly. A contractor who quotes hand digging around services is a contractor who intends to do it properly. Overhead services matter as much as buried ones on some sites.

An excavator mounted auger has real height when the boom is up, and the clearance requirements around overhead powerlines are strict, with exclusion zones that apply to plant and to the people operating it. Rural properties with private lines and older suburbs with overhead street supply both raise the issue. WorkSafe WA sets out the work health and safety duties that apply to this work. Insurance is worth confirming instead of assuming. A damaged fibre or a cut power service generates a repair bill from the asset owner and potentially a claim from neighbours left without supply, and the question of who pays turns on who was negligent and who was insured.

Get a certificate of currency and read what it actually covers. Any established contractor will produce one without hesitation. Sewer and drainage assets deserve particular caution on older suburban blocks. A gravity sewer connection running across a back garden sits at a depth that a deep footing hole will reach, and a cracked sewer is both expensive and unpleasant to resolve.

Where a property is on a septic or treatment system, the tank and the leach drains are also in the ground somewhere, and neither is marked on the surface. Older unsewered pockets around the metropolitan fringe and through the hills are where this comes up most often. The drainage page and the soakwell installation page both cover assets that commonly sit where somebody wants a post. If the property has a leach drain, find out roughly where it runs before anybody sets out a fence line across the back garden.

Machines and Augers

The handheld two person auger is where most people start and it has a narrow band of usefulness. It will drill a 200 millimetre hole in clean soft soil quickly and cheaply, it is available from every hire yard in the state for a modest daily rate, and it is entirely defeated by limestone, granite, heavy clay, tree roots and buried rubble. It also has a habit of transmitting everything it hits straight into the operators. For half a dozen holes in known soft ground it is fine. Mini loaders with auger attachments are the workhorse of suburban post hole work.

A machine of this size fits through a standard side gate, carries real hydraulic torque, changes augers in a few minutes and will drill a domestic fence line in a couple of hours. It struggles in solid caprock and manages most other WA ground comfortably. For the majority of residential jobs this is the machine that turns up. Excavator mounted augers handle everything the smaller machines cannot. The hydraulic power available from even a compact excavator is in a different class, the boom gives reach into positions the machine cannot drive to, and large diameter and deep holes for structural footings are routine work. The trade off is space, because the machine needs room to track in and swing.

On a tight infill block that is frequently the deciding factor. Rock augers are the specific answer to Tamala limestone and they are a genuinely different tool. Rather than cutting flights that lift soil, they carry hardened teeth designed to grind through soft rock, they turn slower with far more torque, and they are noticeably slower per hole than a soil auger. A contractor working the coastal corridor carries one as a matter of course. Check that one is on the truck instead of assuming it.

Where rock beats the auger entirely, the job changes tools. A rock breaker or hydraulic hammer will make a hole in material an auger cannot touch, the result is a rougher hole than a drilled one, and it takes longer and costs more per hole. Sometimes the answer is to move the post instead of fighting the rock. A contractor who suggests that is thinking about your budget. Tractor and truck mounted units are rural equipment and they exist to cover distance. A three point linkage auger on a tractor or a dedicated post driving rig will work a fence line at a pace no suburban machine matches, and for a run of several hundred metres that is the only sensible approach.

Many rural contractors combine drilling and driving in one pass. It is worth asking whether the same visit can set the posts as well. Hand digging still has a place and a good contractor will tell you when. Holes over located services, holes in corners a machine cannot reach, holes against an existing structure and holes where a neighbour's paving starts at the boundary all get done with a shovel and a crowbar.

It is priced by the hour because it is slow. Knowing which holes on your job fall into that category before the quote is written avoids a variation later. Access determines the machine more often than the ground does. A back garden reached through a 900 millimetre gate rules out anything but a mini loader or handheld equipment regardless of what is underneath, and a job where a fence panel has to come out for access needs that arranged in advance. Contractors will tell you what fits if you measure the narrowest point. Measuring it before they arrive saves a wasted callout.

Attachments beyond the auger are worth knowing about because they can save a second visit. The same machine that drills the holes can usually trench for a reticulation line, level a strip, load spoil into a trailer or move materials around the block, and combining those tasks into one attendance is considerably cheaper than booking twice. The trenching page covers the service line work that often accompanies a new fence. Find out what else is on the truck.

Setting the Posts

Whether the contractor sets the posts or only drills the holes is the first thing to establish. Plenty of post hole contractors drill and leave, plenty will set posts if asked, and the price difference between the two is substantial. Assuming one and getting the other is a common source of friction on these jobs. Put it in the enquiry instead of discovering it on the day.

Concrete for post setting comes in three forms and each suits different work. Premixed bags mixed on site suit small numbers of holes, dry mix poured in and watered suits fence posts in reasonable quantity and is very widely used in Western Australia, and ready mixed concrete delivered by truck suits large structural footings where volume and consistency matter. The engineer's detail may specify which is acceptable. For structural work it usually does. Dry pour is common enough here to be worth explaining. The post is set and braced, dry mix is poured around it and water is added, and the moisture in the surrounding soil completes the cure over the following days.

It is fast, it works well in Perth sand and it is perfectly adequate for a domestic fence. It is not a substitute for a properly mixed structural footing. Concrete volume per hole is a real cost that people underestimate. A 300 millimetre hole 600 deep takes roughly forty litres of concrete once the post displaces some of it, which is around two bags, and forty of those holes is eighty bags sitting on a pallet in the driveway. On a large shade sail footing the volume can approach a cubic metre for a single post.

Get the concrete quantified, because a passing mention is not a quantity. Bracing while the concrete cures is what separates a straight fence from a wavy one. Posts need to be held plumb and in line until the concrete has taken, which usually means temporary bracing left in place overnight, and a contractor who sets forty posts and walks away has left you with whatever the wind decides. It is basic practice and it is sometimes skipped. Get an answer on how the posts will be held. Curing time governs what can happen next and it is frequently rushed.

Concrete continues gaining strength for weeks, the practical wait before loading a fence post is usually a day or two, and a structural footing carrying a patio roof needs considerably longer before anything is bolted to it. Hot dry Perth conditions accelerate the surface and not the core. The builder nominates the wait. The weather does not.

Drainage at the base of a post extends its life and costs almost nothing. A layer of coarse material at the bottom of the hole lets water move away from the end grain of a timber post instead of sitting against it, and in the wetter southern parts of the state that difference shows up over the years. Some specifications require it and some do not. The fencing contractor should say what they want at the bottom of the hole. Finishing the top of the footing matters more than it looks.

A footing crowned slightly above ground level and sloped away sheds water, and one that finishes flat or dished holds a puddle against the post every time it rains. It takes an extra few seconds per hole. On a timber post it is the difference between a fence that lasts and one that rots at ground line. Reinstatement around the finished posts is the last item on the list.

Lawn cut by a machine, spoil spread across garden beds, tracks across paving and a strip of disturbed ground along the fence line all need attention, and whether the contractor does that or leaves it should be in the quote. The landscaping page covers putting a garden back together afterwards. Settle it before the machine arrives, not after it leaves. Reinstatement quoted afterwards is always dearer than reinstatement quoted with the job.

Costs in Detail

A standard fence post hole in workable ground runs $12 to $35 each where there are enough of them to justify the visit. The rate sits at the bottom of that range on a long straight run in clean sand with good machine access and at the top on a short run, an awkward site or ground that fights back. Most contractors apply a minimum regardless of the hole count. That minimum is what makes small jobs expensive per hole. The minimum charge or half day rate runs $350 to $750 across Western Australia. It covers getting the machine onto a float, driving it to your property, unloading, working, loading and leaving, and most of that cost exists whether you have five holes or thirty.

It is why combining jobs into one attendance is so much cheaper than booking twice. Find out what the minimum buys in hours or holes. A full day with machine and operator runs $850 to $1,600 depending on the machine size and the region. An excavator with an auger sits at the upper end and a mini loader at the lower, and the day rate is usually the better structure on anything unpredictable.

On difficult ground it also protects the contractor, which keeps the price honest. For hills work and established suburbs this is the common arrangement. Holes through limestone run $45 to $140 each and the spread reflects how much rock there is. A hole that hits caprock in the last hundred millimetres is a very different proposition from one that is drilling rock from three hundred down, and contractors price the actual condition, not the postcode. This is the item most likely to appear as a variation. Get the charging arrangement settled before the machine starts.

Large footing holes at 450 millimetres and above run $85 to $260 each. Patio, carport, verandah and shade sail footings all sit in this band, and the figure moves with the depth, the diameter, the ground and whether the base has to be belled out. Ten footings for a patio is a half day, not an hour. Get the engineer's detail to the contractor before they quote it. Rural strainer, corner and gate post holes run $45 to $120 each and are priced differently from line posts for good reason.

They are wider and deeper, they frequently sit in ground that has not been disturbed in decades, and they carry the loads that hold an entire fence line in tension. A contractor pricing a rural run will quote line posts by the metre and assemblies separately. That is the sensible way to structure it. Concrete supplied and poured runs $18 to $55 a hole depending on the volume and the product.

Bagged dry mix in a fence post hole sits at the bottom, a large structural footing taking most of a cubic metre sits well above the top of that range, and owner supplied concrete removes the item entirely. Decide who is buying the concrete before the quote is written. It is a surprisingly common misunderstanding. Service location before digging runs $250 to $650 for a domestic site. Free plans from the national referral service cost nothing and a physical locate with marks on the ground is the paid step, and on any site where plans show an asset near the work it is the right call. Set against the cost of a cut power service or a severed fibre it is trivial.

Treat it as part of the job, not an extra. Spoil removal is charged separately where it is required. Post hole spoil from a fence line is usually spread or left on site at no cost, and where a customer wants it gone it is a trailer or a small truckload at $180 to $420. On a clay or rubble site it is more likely to need removing than on a sand site. Say at the quoting stage what you want done with it.

Regional pricing follows the machine more than the labour. Contractors based in Bunbury, Albany, Geraldton and Kalgoorlie charge broadly metropolitan rates within their own towns, and the float charge to get a machine out to a property an hour away is what lifts the total. Rural operators frequently quote a minimum that reflects the travel. Where several neighbours need work done, organising it as one trip is genuinely worth the phone calls.

What to Look Out For

Do not accept a per hole price on a coastal block without asking about rock. Tamala limestone is present across a large part of the metropolitan area at depths nobody can predict from the street, and a quote that makes no mention of it is either carrying a large hidden allowance or is about to become a variation. Put the question directly: what happens when the auger stops. The answer tells you whether the contractor knows the area.

Never let anybody drill without service plans on site. They are free, they take minutes to obtain, and the alternative is an auger finding a power cable at depth with somebody standing next to it. Plans are indicative and not exact, which is an argument for locating and hand digging near assets rather than an argument for skipping the plans. Any contractor who dismisses this is telling you something important. Be careful about who is responsible for setting out.

The contractor drills where the marks are, and unless it has been agreed that they will set out the line, the marks are yours and so are the consequences. On a boundary fence that also means the position has to be settled with the neighbour beforehand. Holes in the wrong place cannot be undone cheaply. Check that the specified footing size is the one being drilled. Where a structure is engineered, the footing dimensions on the approved drawings exist for a reason, and an auger that happens to be on the truck is not a reason to change them. Substituting a smaller hole because the right auger was not brought is a real thing that happens.

Get the diameter confirmed before anything goes in the ground. Watch for holes left open overnight in sand. A hole drilled in clean Perth sand loses depth as the sides slump, and a line drilled on Friday and filled on Monday will not be the depth anybody paid for. Drilling and setting on the same day is the usual answer. Where that is not possible, the contractor should say how the holes will be protected.

Get the concrete arrangement in writing. Who supplies it, what product, how much per hole and whether the price includes placing it are four separate questions, and the difference between owner supplied bags and contractor supplied concrete across forty holes is several hundred dollars. Confusion on this point is extremely common. Two lines on the quote resolve it. Raise insurance and see the certificate. A strike on a buried service generates a bill from the asset owner and potentially claims from neighbours, and whether that lands on you depends on who was covered.

It is a reasonable question and any established contractor expects it. A reluctance to provide the document is a reason to keep looking. One last thing, be wary of the cheapest quote when the ground is unknown. A price well below the others on a hills block or a coastal block usually means the contractor has not allowed for the rock, and the gap reappears as a variation once the machine is on site and committed. A slightly higher price with the rock condition spelled out is generally the cheaper job. Compare what is being carried, not only the number.

How to Get Comparable Quotes

Give the hole count, the diameter and the depth. Those three numbers are what a contractor prices from, and an enquiry that says a fence line without saying how many posts, how deep and how wide is an enquiry that produces a guess. Where the holes come from an engineer's detail, send the detail. Where they come from a fencing contractor, get the numbers from them first. Describe the ground as accurately as you can. The suburb, whether limestone has been struck anywhere on the block before, whether the property is on a slope, whether anything has been demolished or filled and what the neighbours found when they fenced are all useful.

Photographs of the line and of the access point help a great deal. A contractor who knows the suburb will usually fill in the rest. Measure the narrowest access point and say what it is. The width of the side gate, whether there are steps, whether a fence panel can come out and whether the machine can get to the back without crossing paving determine which machine turns up. That single measurement changes the price more than most other variables.

It also avoids a contractor arriving with equipment that cannot reach the work. Put the same written questions to each contractor. Whether the price is per hole or hourly and what happens if rock is struck, whether service plans will be obtained and by whom, whether any holes need hand digging near assets, what diameter auger will be used, whether posts are set or only holes drilled, who supplies the concrete and how much per hole, what happens to the spoil, insurance, and how soon they can attend. Written answers make three prices comparable.

Get the rock rate onto the quote as a separate line. On any block where limestone or granite is possible, a quote that shows a base rate plus a stated rate for rock holes is both more honest and easier to compare than a single figure, and it lets you see exactly what the worst case looks like. Contractors who work the coastal corridor quote this way as a matter of habit. Where it is not offered, ask for it. Bundle the work into one attendance wherever you can. The minimum charge covers the trip more than the holes, so the clothesline, the two replacement fence posts, the letterbox and the holes for the new gate cost far less together than separately.

Look around the property before you book. Most contractors will happily add small items to an existing booking. Work out what else the machine can do while it is there. Levelling a strip for paving, trenching a reticulation line, loading spoil, moving limestone blocks or clearing a corner are all within the same visit, and the site clearing page covers the wider tidy up work that often pairs with it. The hourly rate is already being paid.

Using it fully is simply good value. Book earlier than feels necessary. Post hole work follows the fencing and outdoor building trades, which means spring and early summer are busy and the week you want is usually taken, and the contractors worth using are the ones with a diary. Winter bookings get better attention and often a better rate. The excavation and earthmoving page covers the broader range of machine work that can be scheduled into the same visit.