[TowerTalk] Re: Digging Holes

Stan or Patricia Griffiths w7ni@easystreet.com
Tue, 20 Mar 2001 10:57:26 -0800



K7LXC@aol.com wrote:

>      Here's something that I'm trying to change in regard to US Tower
> installations. It's almost impossible to dig some of the holes that are on
> their drawings and in their catalog. For example, your tower in the catalog
> calls for a 3' x3' x 6'6" deep hole. This is impossible for a backhoe to dig.
> There's not enough room to articulate the bucket and do the excavation. You
> can't dig it by hand; not only is it dangerous but also there's not enough
> room to use a shovel. I don't think anyone from UST has actually installed
> one of these bases - it's really a stupid design. My advice is to get an
> engineer to design a more "practical" configuration.

Well, I've dug 30 or 40 holes of this description, by hand, personally.  After
the first two feet or so, the technique is to use a steel bar to break up about 3
inches of soil in the bottom on the hole.  You use the bar vertically so you
don't actually need more room in the hole than you need to crouch in it when
scooping up the dirt with a bucket.

It can be argued that this is unsafe, as the sides of the hole COULD cave in and
bury you, but you ARE allowed to use some common sense once in awhile.  For
example, don't do this in loose sand.  Compacted clay would probably be OK.

Nobody said doing this was not a lot of work.  It is a lot of work, but I have
always rationalized it as being "good for me" since I have spent most of my
working life as a sales engineer for Tektronix and did not get a lot of exercise
doing that.  I never did it alone and always had a buddy to empty the bucket for
me so I did not have to climb out of the hole a lot.  You can't make much per
hour doing this work but that was not why I did it.

If you want to save a little labor, you can always rent a power post hole digger
which will dig holes straight down with an auger and you can clean them up by
hand.  Be careful if you try to use a power post hole digger.  It can tear your
arm right out of your shoulder . . .

Stan
w7ni@easystreet.com



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