[TowerTalk] Mounting a 4x4 in concrete

[Rick Bullon]

Hello Derek
Finally a subject I have experience with! I live in the country ie boonies 
and we do this all the time to hang gates off of in the fences around the 
pasture. We use treated 4X4's around here and hand up to 18' gates off them.
You really need to have the 4X4 as deep as you can get it if you just put it 
2' in the ground it will never be study. 4' is minimum depth.
Since you ar using redwood you shouldn't worry about it rotten in the 
ground, around here redwood is too expensive to use as gate posts.

As to the brackets you are talking about they are designed to bear weight 
not to support the post. In a deck they are usually sitting on a concrete 
footing it is just a convent way to attach the post to the footing. I tried 
to use these to put roof on my front deck ( attached them to the deck board 
of a flat deck) it failed miserably the first good storm that came though 
here ripped most of it off as the top of the deck swayed in the wind and 
shook it self apart.

When you go to dig the hole to plant the 4X4 in make it a big hole don't 
just dig a 1' X1' X4' hole make it at least 2'X2'X4' use lots of concrete. 
let it set for at least 2 days before you put anything on it.

You might talk wit Tom W8JI he has a four sq that is supported with 4X4's
73
Rick
KC5AJX
----Original Message Follows----
From: "Derek Cohn/WB0TUA" <vibroplex at mindspring.com>
To: <towertalk at contesting.com>
Subject: [TowerTalk] Mounting a 4x4 in concrete
Date: Tue, 26 Oct 2004 23:45:02 -0500

Dear All,

I'm trying to elevate my very low dipole that is fed with balanced line.  
I'm trying to go with a non-metallic support so the balanced line does not 
interact.  My dipole is currently 18' in the air.

I recently purchased a 22' fiberglass mast from The Mast Co.  This is their 
heavy duty windsock pole.  I'm planning on mounting it to a 20' redwood 4x4 
with the Kwik-Block mounting blocks they also sold me.  I plan to set the 4 
x4 in concrete.

I checked around and one of the local deck builders says I need to put about 
4' of the redwood 4x4 into the concrete.  That would reduce my effective 
height of the 4x4 to 16'.  If I overlap the fiberglass mast a foot or two, I 
have 16' + 20' = 36' which is roughly double the height I have now.

What do you guys think about the 4' of 4x4 into the ground.  Too much, too 
little, just right?  I noticed that you can put l-bolts into the concrete 
footer and mount a u-shaped bracket on top of the footer that will accept 
the 4x4.  This is advertised for deck applications and I think it wouldn't 
support 20 feet of 4x4.  However, it would give me four more feet of height 
if it could be made to work.  Has anyone tried this?

73,

Derek Cohn
Morse Telegraph Club - Alton Chapter
Telegraph Office UD, sine DJ
Amateur Radio Station - WB0TUA
1969 M274A5 Mechanical Mule
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