As a foundation engineer my first thought is wow! I think that foundation is way over designed. My second thought is if you have water at 5 feet you may be better off having the backhoe guy bring a d
To go that thin I would recommend using a number 6 or larger rebar on the top and bottom. At that point you might be better off calling a local concrete company to put the foundation in for you. They
Patrick That sounds like quite the interesting setup. How well it works really depends on the soil conditions and the design loads. Having a reinforced foundation goes a long way. In this case the ex
Hans Done properly this could work well. Many a solar panel is mounted in a similar situation. Many of them lay the beams as an H and connect the tower to the middle of the cross beam and put a pier
Move the pipe. If it were to ever leak you would have a leaning tower. _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________ TowerTalk mailing list TowerTalk
Not wrong :). I have a bit of experience in the matter. I have seen structures fail from a leaky unpressurized sewer pipe that was fine when they built it. The top 1.5 feet will provide so little lat
Im saying an old utility needs to be moved or abandoned. The new wet utilities should come in under the foundation with a minimum clearance and a reinforced footing that will easily span the less tha
If you weld it the rod may rust which will cause the concrete to burst. Not a fun situation as usually the recommended repair is completely remove the foundation and replace it. As a foundation engin
The frustrating thing about this for me is now I find tower talk emails in my spam folder. I un spam them but based on any number of factors my spam filter still thinks some of them are spam. _______
I host a mail server for a few domains I own and/or manage. I have used spamassassin successfully for about 10 years. It does a pretty good job of finding spam, but when a few "spams" get sent from a
I have the equipment to drill a 6 inch hole through just about anything, what if I placed my grounding rods in concrete or grout? Would that help or hurt the grounding? I do have a ground resistance
Thanks for the advice. I think my best course will be to test the soil conductivity. The only time we have lightening here is during the summer storms; the soil is usually damp from the sprinklers al
Mike, I deal with similar situations during my day job, I am a soil engineer. The great thing about soil engineering is every site is different, and every loading situation is different. What really
Mike, if you look in the phone book for a geotechnical engineer you will probably find what you are looking for. A geotechnical engineer will tell you how to prepare the soil. A structural engineer w
TIA-222 has very little to say about the tower foundations except to say that a geotechnical report is required and frost depth is required. It is a standard used to calculate the loading conditions
As for the utilities usually the municipality doesn't inspect their installations as they are self regulating. The "screw anchors" ie "helical piers" are installed to a certain torque which the softw
You wouldnt want to only rely on helical piers for a free standing tower. If its a guyed tower the guys resist nearly all of the lateral load so the base only has to support the dead weight of the to
It all depends on the forces involved. As a general rule an anchor is good at keeping something from sliding around but if the bolt/anchor system could be subjected to pulling out you are better off
Ken, Depending on where you live (how dry the soil is, what type of soil), and how much you expect the new foundation to cost you may save money hiring an engineer to design your new foundation. If y
If it's a guyed tower then go for it! If it's a self supporting tower here is my answer: Yes you can ... kind of, depending on how you have the old bolts in place. If they are just cast into the conc