[Towertalk] Tower base "solution"

[Guy Olinger, K2AV]

Another gotcha at my place is the long paved driveway with a 56" steel
culvert pipe where Reedy Branch goes underneath (official tributary of
the Cape Fear River that starts about a half mile away). This was an
expensive repair of a prior 24" pipe that was weakened in Hurricane
Fran and taken out by a local flash flood six weeks later.

The concrete guys wanted a hold harmless waiver to drive in. We kept
the trucks out on the service road and they ran front loaders in with
concrete in the buckets for the pour.

Something of the weight of that base *AND* a truck big enough to haul
it would have probably damaged the culvert and certainly would have
broken up the driveway asphalt, not exactly built to interstate
highway standards.

Another aspect of prefab I don't remember seeing in this thread, is
that for a given strength ABSENT pouring against disturbed earth, one
will need a LARGER prefab mass to recover the lost strength.

If that was not enough, have you ever tried to get the ground level
under something flat and heavy so that when the sinking stopped the
durn thing would be vertical/level? A lot simpler to deal with in a
pour.

PS, Jim (K4OJ) puts forth the idea that his dad was the king of all
over-engineers. Was that from a sense of loyalty or awe, Jim?
Inquiring minds want to know...


73 y'all,

Guy

----- Original Message -----
From: "Pete Smith" <n4zr@contesting.com>
To: "TowerTalk" <towertalk@contesting.com>
Sent: Friday, April 05, 2002 7:12 AM
Subject: Re: [Towertalk] Tower base "solution"


> At 11:44 PM 4/4/02 -0500, Guy Olinger, K2AV wrote:
> >Tucked away in many small corners of the specifications for bases
and
> >such, are such quaint phrases as undisturbed earth, among others.
All
> >of which make the right stuff not quite as "prefab-able" as one
might
> >like.
> >
> >As to hauling stuff in ready-poured, ready-hardened,
ready-reinforced,
> >and ready-to-go, consider the base to my 80' Trylon self-standing
> >tower...
> >
> >11 cubic yards of concrete with embedded base legs and what must
have
> >been 300' of 3/4" rebar.
>
>
> Just the concrete alone would weigh over 40,000 lb, which may help
further
> to put the prefab base issue in perspective.  This is a LOT bigger
job to
> lift and put in place than any septic tank.
>
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