Power Pedestal/H-Frame on Camping Land

We recently purchased some land that will eventually turn into a cabin for us. Until then, we plan to use it for camping and are planning on having power brought back in from the road yet the fall (we are assuming pricing will only go up next year). My thought was to construction an H-Frame and have the meter on one side with a breaker box and outlets on the other side. The soil is pretty much all sand on our land. My question is what would be the best way to get some 4″x4″ posts down about 4ft in sandy soil? Would a post hole auger work like setting fence posts in normal dirt? Or would I be better off digging a larger hole with an excavator and cementing them in, then backfilling with sand? the attached pic is pretty much what I am looking to do, the land in the picture is mostly black dirt and clay (not in Wisconsin)

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Use a auger and set the posts in Quikcrete.

If it’s pure sand I’d just use an old school manual post hole digger. It won’t take long at all.

Dump a bag of concrete on the bottom for a cookie.

Screw and glue some 2×4″ chunks onto the lower sides of the post for frost blocks.

Backfill with sand.

Leave the posts higher than you want and cut them off once set.

We put a deck on our property in sand country. Post hole digger didn’t work. Sand just kept caving into the hole. Had to dig a hole at least 4 feet deep, put cookie in bottom, then back fill. The inspector signed off on this design.

mxskeeter wrote:

We put a deck on our property in sand country. Post hole digger didn’t work. Sand just kept caving into the hole. Had to dig a hole at least 4 feet deep, put cookie in bottom, then back fill. The inspector signed off on this design.

Did you use an auger then or hand dig a wide hold in order to get deep enough?

Contact your utility. Crow Wing Power here in MN. wants to supply the meter housing and pedestal. They will also do the install. The pedestal/meter housing/distribution panel is breaker protected for your house feed and includes a 20 amp 120 vac circuit for construction purposes.

It cost about $500 for the pedestal, plus $x per ft, for the buried supply.

it look something like this:

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We have something very similar to what’s in your pic at our lake place for our camper. We have a 200 amp service. We have the main box with the meter and the 200 amp shut off breaker and then the rv box with a 50 amp, 30 amp and 2 110V 20 amp circuits mounted right next to it on a H wooden pedestal. Ours is dug down with Quickcrete poured in but we are all clay.

We plug our destination trailer into the 50 amp and the son in law plugs his Ice Castle into the 30 amp. Going to be adding another rv pedestal in a different location being fed from the same 200 amp service next spring. Going to buy a rv pedestal like what you see at the rv campgrounds. Either direct bury or a pad mounted one haven’t decided for sure yet.

That could be another option for you is to pour a pad and get a pad mounted service station and bolt it down to the pad. Makes a nice clean looking installation.

Get your ice auger out!!!

When its poor soils that cave when digging post holes we use either Du-Wall tile or PVC pipe larger then the post. As you dig keep pushing the pipe down. One thing about using PVC the frost has a harder time grabbing and heaving it up.