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Re: [TowerTalk] Digging The Hole

To: "'towertalk reflector'" <towertalk@contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Digging The Hole
From: "Paul Christensen" <w9ac@arrl.net>
Date: Mon, 12 Feb 2018 17:00:17 -0500
List-post: <mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
>"...the only thing the building department cared about was that I had a
Ufer ground. I guess they had done some reading about tower Ufer grounds. I
had already planned one -- three 50' runs of 1/0 tied to the rebar cage and
bottom section (pier pin), exothermically welded to 8' ground rods every
16'. The inspector came out to check it just before the pour, then never
came back to inspect the final structure."

Same here, Dick.  At my pre-pour inspection of two self-supporting towers,
the county inspector was reluctant to issue an approval because the Ufer
didn't show on the PE prints.  The PE (a good friend of mine) copied the
ground system directly from the Pirod documentation.   Their documents
simply show #2 soft-dawn copper wire at the base of each leg to 8 ft. ground
rods for a total of three.  In total, we ended up with about 50 rods in the
system, several of which are 24 ft. in length and are located at key points,
like the master ground bus at the building's cable entrance.  After checking
with the PE, the inspector then approved it.

The Ufer uses #2 wire that starts at the top of one side of the concrete
base pier then smoothly zig zags on the rebar down the side, along the
bottom rebar cage which is about 10 ft. below the ground, then up the other
side of the cage where it exits.  The two ends were then Cadwelded to a #2
ring around the tower base with each tower leg having multiple rods that
extend outward at intervals of 2x the rod length.  Bronze Harger clamps were
used to connect the #2 wire to the rebar.  These are made specifically for
this purpose and are rated for use inside concrete.   6-inch pieces of
1/2-inch PVC were placed in the concrete at the wire ingress/egress points
to keep the concrete edges from cracking around the wire.

Paul, W9AC

-----Original Message-----
From: Ed Sawyer [mailto:sawyered@earthlink.net]
Sent: Sunday, February 11, 2018 12:51 PM
To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Digging The Hole

Even if an inspector comes out, they would not necessarily care that there
were clean box edges.  They would be typically looking for "lot line set
back adherence" of an auxiliary structure as well as the reinforcement
structure.  But I would be surprised that they would care about the edges
being clean vs pouring up to the undisturbed soil.

 

I had to pull a permit here for the towers, but they were never inspected.
When they came to inspect the house foundation footings before pouring, they
were only concerned about the as built outline and set back matching the
permit submission.

 

73

 

Ed  N1uR

Vermont



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