[TowerTalk] Jackhammer removal of tower base difficulty?

Patrick Barkey n9rvee at gmail.com
Wed Nov 2 17:53:27 PDT 2011


Rich,

I have personal experience with this.

The older (stronger) the concrete, the more difficult this will be.  I
moved out of a QTH in Ohio that was previously owned by a ham who had
been there since the 1960's.  I tried to bust some concrete anchors
for elevated guys with an electric hammer.  Fuggetaboutit.  Didn't
even dent them.  Next I had a local contractor come over with a big,
trailer mounted compressor and hammer.  Nada.  Finally I paid some
serious money to have a guy come over with a nitrogen-powered hammer
mounted on a Bobcat arm.  After several hours he was able to chip away
enough concrete to throw some dirt over it and call it a day.

I sure hope that new property owner never tries to use a rototiller on
that patch!

If the concrete is old, you might be better off with the K4JA approach
-- just pull the entire thing out of the ground with an excavator and
fill the resulting hole.

One the 'crete is out of the ground it busts up really easy.

Sorry to be so pessimistic, but that is my experience with the old
stuff.  Hopefully you will be luckier.

  - Pat
    N9RV


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