On 11/3/2013 12:55 AM, Al Kozakiewicz wrote:
On 11/1/2013 6:24 PM, KM5VI wrote:
Since then, the price of concrete has skyrocketed. While I haven't checked
recently it was over 3 times what I paid and I have no reason to believe it
dropped any. Steel has come down >some, but not a lot. Why concrete went so
high I don't know.
IIRC I only paid $30 some dollars a yard for the high strength mix with
high fiber. We poured 4" over 1" Styrofoam for the shop floor. For what
we used on the guyed tower, rerod wasn't even needed. As
I understand, the high strength mix (without the fiber) is over a $100 a
yard now. Steel almost doubled, but that apparently has dropped to
about a 50% increase over what I paid. As I buy from industrial
suppliers it's typically priced by the pound. OTOH I used to use lots
of steel freely to experiment and do projects. I'm a bit more frugal
with the stuff now<:-)) My hutches/shelving for the ham stations is
pretty much, welded, square tubing with a plywood overlay and veneer
fascia. Those mitered corners are interesting...particularly so they
are solid, but don't require a lot of grinding to make flush.
Energy costs. Everything about concrete manufacturing consumes significant
amounts of energy. Mining the limestone, transportation, calcination (kiln
@1500C), grinding, more transportation, mining gravel and sand, yet more
transportation, raw material handling, mixing, and final transportation to the
job site.
Around here, energy seems to be about the same although diesel fuel
prices are quite unstable. Natural gas and electricity are cheap
73
Roger (K8RI)
Al
AB2ZY
_______________________________________________
_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk@contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk
|