[TowerTalk] Tower Base Removal

[Patrick Greenlee]

There are far better choices of explosives than dynamite for this job. 
Really high velocity stuff to fracture/cut the concrete.
It is nowhere near as loud as dynamite.

Since 9-11 license for explosives has become much harder to obtain.  For 
your own personal use, not for hire, and on your own property a lisc was 
pretty simple top get for a ranch or farm but now things are much tighter.

How is winter progressing at the OP's QTH?  You can drill deep holes in the 
concrete and fill with water if the weather is cold enough to freeze it. 
The expansion when it freezes will crack the concrete.  Stone quarries used 
to drive dry wooden wedges into cracks or cut grooves in solid rock and then 
apply water to the wedge so that it would take in the water and swell up 
splitting off great chunks of stone.

I would personally NOT go with the crane.

Patrick NJ5G


-----Original Message----- 
From: K7LXC at aol.com
Sent: Saturday, January 18, 2014 10:27 AM
To: towertalk at contesting.com ; mike at ve3yf.com
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Tower Base Removal

>  I need to have a hole for  my new tower 6' x 6' x 7.5' deep. Due to
limited lot size that I live in,  and mainly to keep peace in the
family, I am looking at removing my old  tower base 4' x 4' x 5' deep
and it contains no re-bar, just tower base  stubs. I can't remember
what grade of concrete it is, but it is about 14  years old. I am
limited to 2 types of removal, crane and Armstrong method.  The crane
company won't make any guarantee's they can complete the job due  to
complications etc, and want a hefty payment up front. I am now
looking at having a young guy come by and use a Jackhammer to do the  job.
Has anyone tried demolishing their old tower base and how long did it
take any problems etc. Since this undertaking is new to me I am open
to  suggestions and or comments and hopefully some good suggestions.

Howdy --

    Actually your  existing base is pretty large. How much bigger does it
have to be for the new  tower?


While the LXC  Prime Directive is to "DO what the manufacturer says", you
might be able to get  away with enlarging the existing hole. If the base
isn't cracked somewhere, dig  out 2 sides of it, drill and epoxy in some 
rebar
and fill it in with concrete.  Then adapt the new base to the hole. I've 
done
this several times with no  problems.

    The role of the rebar is to keep the concrete from  cracking so by
adding the rebar in the expansion, the new stuff should be just  fine.

    It sounds like you haven't had any fatal problems  with the existing
base so adding to it, despite its shortcomings would probably  solve your
problem.

Cheers,
Steve    K7LXC
TOWER TECH -
Professional tower services for amateurs
Cell: 206-890-4188



_______________________________________________



_______________________________________________
TowerTalk mailing list
TowerTalk at contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/towertalk

_______________________________________
No infections found in this incoming message
Scanned by iolo System Shield
http://www.iolo.com