sudden foul smell while hammering post into ground

hello,
I was hammering down some post in a grassy area to put some banner. And suddenly I smelled something bad for few min but then it disappeared. Is it just some kind of decomposed air coming out or did I hit some kind of pipe?

 

Without digging it up have no idea what you hit.

 

How deep were you driving the post? Shouldn't be any pipe too near the surface. If you have a septic system the drain field for it may be fairly shallow but should still be at least 12-18" deep. If you hit that you'll know it soon enough

Did the post suddenly go several inches deeper with little effort?

 

Its about 18inch deep. We didnt hear any noise. and its on commercial property away from all buildings. and Its been 2 days since then. nobody came up to me saying wtf yall did out there. lol
I highlighted on the pic where we put our poles.

 

I think you need to excavate and investigate. You did have the utilities marked ahead of time, right?

 

Did it smell like natural gas?

 

Sometimes it seems like overkill to call for a utility locate for something as simple as a sign stake, but if you hit a fiber optic cable, which they cut in front of my house, the bill can be huge. Last I heard their bill was over $100,000 and it knocked out some very high priority services so their law suits weren't yet part of that dollar amount. And they had it marked, just didn't pay attention.

Your bad smell could be from something old but as suggested, 18" down will only take a couple of (careful) minutes to find out.

In my area we call Dig Safe to have utilities located and it is free.

Bud

 

I did not have it marked. i actually put a banner near that area before. Its been over 3 days and no one came by to say wtf. From doing some research. if the grassy area gets wet alot and its been raining for 15 days. It can have bacteria underground and that can create the smell. Im thinking its something like that. Since the smell never came back after a min.

It was something similar to this
Everbilt 6 ft. Heavy Duty Steel Green Painted T-Post-901176HD - The Home Depot

 

I hope you can forgive me for being so blunt, but SO WHAT? That's your level of concern for others and their property?

 

Those Tee Post are very common and used as fencing post and markers all over. Very few people would think about calling for search. Since you no longer have the smell I'd say you missed the bullet. However, you might want to remove your markers and have it searched and marked. Just to be on the safe side. Then re-insert your markers.

Although all buried utilities should be at least 24" down that may not be the case. When I called to have may property marked I knew there was a gas line directly under my area that I was going to dig. The question was how deep. When the gasman came out to mark it he told me in can be as little as 10". Not right but it happens.

 

While putting in an electric fence on our property I beat a T post directly into a copper gas line from my propane tank. Not a big deal since it didn't break the line, but I still had to repair it. Yeah, gas lines might not be that far down.

Later on I hit the same line while weed whacking around the tank with a metal grass blade. Was also doing the entire fence line. That one did cut the line but I just turned off the valve on the tank and made the repair. That line has taken a beating!

 

When Verizon installed fiber optic cable in my area they installed an access vault at the outer end of my driveway. When I got the fiber run to my house for Internet service they just used a shovel to make a slit in the ground and then pushed the fiber behind the shovel as they pulled the shovel back out. That means that my fiber optic cable is no more than eight or ten inches deep at the most. The Verizon men also severed my Comcast coaxial cable when installing the fiber so that was no more than ten inches deep as well.

When digging in a depression near to my electrical meter I don't think I was more than ten inches deep when I came across the electrical service conductors. They MAY be 24 inches deep at the vault (next to the fiber optic vault) but they sure as heck aren't that deep next to the house.

 

FIOS is relatively new when compared to cable, etc. While modifying a step set up on a deck at our local college, we dug for the footing with a 14" auger. I had called 811 for location and it looked like a mine field of lines. Fiber optic sprung from the ground, cutting off all internet to the college. Lotta unhappy people. Power company (who owns FIOS) came out to repair it and starting apologizing to me right away. I told him that I cut the cable.........yeah, but we didn't mark it was his reply.