I am running into a problem with my tower legs starting to rust and I am
looking for some ideas.
Background:
When I installed an 80 foot Rohn 45 tower 8 years ago I anticipated moving
within 4 or 5 years. I installed it in 1 yard of concrete and left the top
of the concrete 6 inches below grade and filled in dirt on top of the
concrete. I did this so that when I moved I did not have to deal with the
buyers probable complaint of a concrete pad in the backyard. In the past I
would just cut off the legs and backfill dirt and nobody knew it was there.
I realized then that if I did not move in 5 years I would have to do
something to prevent the tower legs from rusting as they would be in contact
with the moist soil. BTW I did use sand and pea gravel at the bottom of the
legs for proper intrenal drainage.
8 years have passed and it looks like I am not moving anytime soon. So much
for the best laid plans. As a result I removed some dirt and closely
inspected the tower legs and, while the galvanizing is gone, they appear to
be solid but certainly have a fair amount of surface rust as you would expect.
My initial thought was to sand and paint the legs and then pour a concrete
cap to a level approx 6 inch above grade.
Another thought was to sand and paint the legs and then coat them with 2 part
epoxy. After that I could wrap a layer of rubber self vulcanizing tape and
then vinyl tape similiar to we do for leak proof coax connections. With
this setup could I just backfill the dirt and forget about the concrete?
This is new territory for me but I bet someone out there in towertalk land
has had this problem and come up with a good solution. I am all ears!!
73
Randy
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