[TowerTalk] digging and errecting a tower in Gumbo soil

[Dale L Martin]

>
> Hello all,
>
> I have a friend that lives in Nebraska and has a new house. He
> wants to put
> up his 40 ft universal freestanding tower towards the back of his
> house lot
> where there seems to be a lot of Gumbo soil. In the warmest
> summer days, it seems
> like the soil cracks a lot quite a ways down, like maybe 6-10 inches. His
> question is should he be putting his tower there ever, even in a
> 4x4x5 hole? He
> isnt looking for the leaning tower of pisa anytime soon. Whats
> the experience
> with this soil been on this group? Bring in better soil to fill
> it? Change the
> location? Thanks in advance. 73
>

Mark,

Personal experience, not engineering expertise here.

If the area where he's putting the tower in is a good drainage area, then
gumbo should be no problem.

My tower is in gumbo, as are the guys.  They've never had a problem with
gumbo expansion/contraction--my house slab on the other hand, is another
story.

It's been so dry in my back yard at times that running water from the hose
into some cracks in the ground for an hour (as an experiment and out of
curiosity) never filled them.  :-)

73,
dale, kg5u