Mailbox Again

I installed our mailbox back in March 2023. It came out about six (6) inches lower than I intended, but otherwise it was super smart:

The timber post was set in a MASSIVE concrete cylinder. I said at the time that I wanted the mailbox to win if it came into contact with a vehicle. About six months later, the clash was called a draw. The post was destroyed, the four bolts which held the mailbox to the post were sheared off and the box ended up fifteen feet away in the driveway:

The car took some serious damage too. The front spoiler and grille were destroyed, the fender and hood were dented, the headlight array needs replacement and the passenger tie rod and/or ball joint or maybe the suspension was broken. I'll take that.

I put up a temporary mailbox the next day. This one was neither secure nor plumb:

A bit later I cut off the above-ground section of the post which took a surprising amount of effort and several cutting discs:

And that was as far as I got for more than a year. Although I had a replacement mailbox and post in my garage for all that time, I just could not quite get around to installing them. Until the day before independence day and I was off work and at a loose end. It helped that the weather was a very pleasant 65F/17C and, even better, Samuel Sheep was on hand to help.

We started by digging a hole next to the existing concrete, which will be staying where it is. We had one guy jackhammering, followed by one guy shoveling loose dirt into the wheelbarrow. This means that if anyone observes us there will always be one guy working and one guy watching; this is standard union operating procedure in the construction industry in the USA. If you have a three person crew, two of them have to watch, and if you have four guys, three must watch, etc. On the larger crews it is customary for observers to form a circle around the worker.

The hole has a depth of twenty-four (24) inches and a diameter of less than a foot, so it is considerably smaller than last time.  We set a 4" x 4" redwood post in the hole and secured it with some bracing. This was much easier to do with two people. 

We mixed up two full bags and one open bag of concrete in the wheelbarrow and poured it into the abyss. It wasn't worth getting the concrete mixer out for a small job like this. 

We took a quick tea break, and then we came back out and filled in the rest of the crater with dirt and replanted the grass we had to temporarily remove:

The next day I was on my own. I removed the bracing, marked the post at 42 inches above grade, and cut off the excess with a circular saw. 

After that I installed the steel sleeve over the post and secured the mailbox. At the time of writing it is has survived over a week of exposure to traffic.