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Re: [TowerTalk] Looking for some foundation advice

To: towertalk@contesting.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Looking for some foundation advice
From: Grant Saviers <grants2@pacbell.net>
Date: Wed, 27 May 2020 16:15:02 -0700
List-post: <mailto:towertalk@contesting.com>
Same problem here for a 589, but in clay so there was a lot of soupy sloughing, a deeper hole, and water at 5ft. Maybe your soil is more friendly. I put a small 120 volt utility pump ($50) in the hole with a garden hose and pumped continuously then we poured the concrete. Put the pump in a bucket with holes and surrounded by gravel as a filter. (There is more to the story when we (K7LXC and me) encountered two abandoned septic tanks).

Actually it is ok to pour concrete into a wet hole if the concrete is pumped in from the bottom. The water rises right out. Not ok to drop concrete into water. The mix plant, pumper and driver know how to adjust the mix a bit.

Or have a PE design a different base, there are all sorts of alternatives, plates, piers, wider and shallow, etc. As long as the base resists the overturning moment and shear. The stock foundation UST wet stamp is on the web so should be a easy and quick job for a PE (unless they want a soils test, which in theory... but local knowledge of conditions often is acceptable).

https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.233.179/563.ac2.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Tower_Model_HDX-572_c_rev1.pdf?time=1590321646

Grant KZ1W

On 5/27/2020 15:44, Don Solberg wrote:
I was planning on purchasing a used US Tower HDX-572, 72 ft crank up
tower.  It looks like I may have run into a problem with the foundation.  I
had some trenching done today for a new well and discovered that the ground
water level is just slightly lower than 6ft.  US Tower specifications call
from a 7.5 foot deep hole. My soil is mostly sand, so in addition to not
being able to go down 7.5 ft, I probably also want to make the foundation
wider.

Is it practical to put up the 72ft tower with a wider pad, or should I look
at getting a smaller 55ft tower?  Another alternative is find another
location for the tower.  I have about a 10 ft hill on another property that
I own across a gravel road.  This would most likely eliminate the ground
water problem but I would have about a 300 ft cable run and I would have to
trench across the town's gravel road.

I am looking for recommendations.

73,

Don K9AQ
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