Southland SEA438 One Man Earth Auger with 43cc, 2 Cycle, Full Crankshaft Engine

After owning and using this auger for 3 years (and 100s of fence posts), here are my thoughts and guidance:The auger head has a 7/8" shaft. If you buy additional bits or extender, keep this in mind. Do not buy accessories intended for 3/4" shaft.The 8-inch bit is fine for 4x6 and 4x4 posts. If you want to go 'skinny' (less concrete) for 4x4 posts, you can always buy a 6-inch bit. I use a 12-inch bit for 6x6 posts (yes this is a bit over-sized, but 6x6 post applications usually call for over-design).Even with using ethanol-free (a.k.a. 'clear') gasoline with stabilizer and premium 2-cycle oil, after mistakenly leaving gas in the tank for extended periods, the fuel lines literally melted. After replacing the fuel lines and carburetor (these are inexpensive after-market items), I will ONLY use pre-mixed (50:1) 2-cycle gas/oil. This stuff is available in cans from any of the big box stores, as well as neighbourhood hardware stores. And I will drain the auger tank before storing it away.The blades on the auger bits are sharp for the first few holes, and then they are not. Rather than constantly sharpening, I use the bits in their 'worn-in' state. When digging in good planting soil, sandy soil, or muddy soil the auger does quite nicely. In hard clay soil, the auger doesn't do well at all -- but there is a solution. After digging the hole (typically with a pry bar or a clamshell type manual digger) 12" or so, fill the hole with water and let the water soak in overnight. The next morning, the soil should be much softer and the auger will zoom through it.Roots larger than 1/2" will cause the auger to spin bu not dig, and I use a reciprocating saw (with 12" carbide blade) to cut away roots. Rocks 1" or larger will also cause the auger to spin (but not dig), and these need to either be removed by hand or loosened up with a pry bar. Once the rocks are loosened, the auger bit will spin them up and continue digging.The 8-inch bit which comes with the power head is good for drilling holes as deep as 30". I keep an 18" extender shaft on the auger, and I can get 48" holes quite easily. With a clamshell hand digger, you are limited to about 24" hole depth unless you widen the hole considerably to allow the clamshell arms to open wide enough to grab any dirt. The power auger does not have any such limitation.Digging technique -- Set the fish-tail point on the ground where you want the centre of the hole. Fire up the auger and drill away at full throttle. As the bit digs deeper and loosens more soil, the power head will bog down under the load of the loosened material. With the auger spinning, raise the auger out of the hole and the spinning bit will toss out much (bit not all) of the loosened material. Drop the bit back in the hole for more digging, and use your foot (carefully!) to clear the mound of loose dirt away from the hole. For deeper holes, I stop the auger before raising it out of the hole. This results in almost all the material sitting on the bit's blade coming out of the hole, leaving a mostly clean hole.If the bit spins without digging, there is likely hard soil or rock or roots in the way -- remove the auger from the hole and use a pry bar or shovel to cut/remove/loosen the obstruction, and then resume the digging with the power auger. If the auger bit 'jams', this is likely caused by a large root which will need to be cut out.Even if soil and root conditions demand that you constantly loosen/cut/pry roots/clay/stones, the power auger still serves two valuable purposes -- material removal and smooth uniform holes. For the first 20" or so of depth, the spinning auger bit will toss loosened material out of the hole. For deeper holes -- too deep for your hand or a clamshell to reach -- use the spinning auger to collect the loosened material, then stop the auger, and then raise the auger straight out of the hole to remove the loosened material from the bottom of the hole. Even if you are constantly loosening material by hand (pry bar, clamshell), using the auger results in a hole with uniform size, and smooth walls and bottom. This makes it easier to adjust the post position while maintaining plumb, and with clearance for concrete.The auger with bit is heavy enough, noisy enough, and vibrates enough that it is helpful to be using cushioned gloves and to alternate with a helper (or take breaks). And wear ear protection! At the end of a long hot day, it doesn't hurt to have help raising the bit out of the 4' hole.Necessary tools for digging post hole with a power auger: reciprocating saw with 12" carbide blade (non-carbide blade will dull instantly when cutting roots buried in soil), clamshell post hole digger, 6' steel pry bar, high quality leather gloves, 48" level with ruler markings, ear protection.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this unit. I was worried that the soil where I wanted to dig some holes was too rocky. I had read reviews and watched videos trying to figure out if it would be able to handle the kind of soil that I have. And my dirt looks like much of the dirt that I see the unit being used in with success, but I have a lot of rocks mixed in. One and two inch rocks. The soil is soft, but the rocks in the mix make it near impossible to use my manual post hole digger, and very slow going using a shovel. To put it in perspective I have to dig a 15 inch by 24 inch square hole three feet deep just to put in one post because of working around the rocks and being able to lift out the dirt with the shovel and post hole digger, taking me nearly 2 hours per hole. Once this auger unit arrived I spend 15 to 20 minutes boring a 3 foot hole by 8 inches round and am able to send and refill the hole with my post. taking me 1/4th the time per post. It did not go as smoothly as some of the videos I have seen because of the rocks. But unlike most of the videos that show the unit unsuccessful dealing with rocks I found it was able to handle the rocks I have mixed in my soil, I hardly noticed the 1-2 inch rocks mixed through out. and when I occasionally came across the tennis ball sized rocks and some times softball sized rocks I found it even removed them with a little finesse. My advice to anyone using it in a semi rocky soil would be to let the weight of the machine be the downward force. and as soon as you notice it grabbing soil or dirt to lift up slightly and let it fall back inward. I just kept lifting up in sort of a bouncing motion and not letting it grab onto the bottom too hard and everything it knocked loose would work its way up the auger bit. Occasionally lifting it up out of the hole to let it spit out any rocks and dirt it found. I was not the smoothest drilling experience or what I would say is so easy anyone can do it. But if your a hardy man and able to pull up on 40 lbs with ease. then you should be able to use this unit, even in soil with rocks. I did not do an exact count but if I had to estimate I would say that in my 36 inch hole by 8 inches around (the size of the auger bit that came with the unit) I could of displaced at least 100 or more 1 inch -2 inch rocks out of the hole with a dozen larger rocks in the mix also. I was really impressed at the softball sized rock that came up out of one hole. I hope this helps answer any ones questions about rocks in their soil being that I couldn't find any post or videos that addressed rocks other than that if the hit one and it stopped the auger that they just dug in a different location. I didn't want my fence being in a zigzag patter or being unevenly spaced between posts.

Pretty ticked off. The picture shows a little bracket that is used for the air filter housing cover to be screwed onto. I don't know what happened to the unit during transport or what but this bracket was so badly bent that the choke plate would not move it was completely pinched behind the bracket. I needed to use the unit right away so I did not have time to exchange and wait another couple weeks so I took the carburetor off and bent this bracket back to true. Put it back together and I was able to get the choke plate to move with the lever. The initial startup took quite a while a lot of pulls but once it was running it seemed to be fine. It did drill through about a foot of Frozen soil to which it did fairly simply. But I am not impressed with this unit it is not super powerful and there is more plastic on this than a Hasbro toy. Two stars mainly because the price at $200 was fair but anything more than that is not worth it.