[TowerTalk] AN Structures towers

[W7ZZ]

Donna, 

 

The timing of your inquiry could not be better for me personally.  I am in
the process at this very moment of erecting two AN Wireless towers (previous
name of company, which has changed hands), an HD 70 and an LD 60.  Let me
tell you my experience so far, and stay tuned for future installments.  By
the way, I am posting this to the group as I agree with the comment one
responder made - these posts are educational for the whole group.

 

This is something of a long story, so bear with me.  I ordered these towers
in the early winter of 2008, while I was building a custom house.  By the
way, I paid to have my towers painted, a requirement imposed by my XYL (we
picked a paint that matched the tree trunks in the yard).  The towers were
shipped by freight (very expensive) to the local yard of the freight
company.  They come on pallets, with the top ten feet fully assembled and
the rest in parts.  The legs and diagonal struts are bundled in logical
fashion and labeled as to what they are in Magic Marker on the outside piece
of the bundle: which is the bottom and which is the top, which tower section
are these parts for, etc.

 

First problem:  how do you get the thing home?  I rented a 28 foot flat bed
truck from Penske.  If you rent it on Friday, they allow you to bring it
back and drop the keys in a night box, so your Friday, one day rental
becomes a weekend rental - unless you have an accident, and then they'll
charge you for each day.  They actually told me how to make a Friday rental
a weekend rental for free.  So, on Friday, I drove the truck to the freight
company and they loaded the pallets onto the flat bed with their fork lift.
I had never driven a 28 foot truck before.  Interesting experience but
manageable.

 

You then have to get the steel off the flat bed truck, which bed is about 6
feet off the ground.  Not having anyone available to help at the time, I
hired a casual laborer off Craig's List who was a great worker and we got
the stuff offloaded at the construction site that was to be my future home.
We basically moved the parts from the truck to the pallets that we moved
into the future back yard.  It's several tons of steel (remember, two
towers) and takes a while.  The "small" parts (nuts and bolts and the step
bolts and section joining plates) come in 5 gallon paint buckets.   I found
that some of those buckets are so heavy that one man can barely lift them,
much less carry them very far.  My Craig's List helper and I used a 2x4
through the paint bucket handle and lifted it to our shoulders, like two
"coolies" carrying a load.  It worked!  We couldn't carry the HD 70
assembled top section - it was too heavy, and would have struggled to carry
the LD 60 assembled top section.  Fortunately, there were some construction
workers at the house that day and they agreed to help, to get the two top
sections into the back yard.  Bottom line:  getting this thing home,
offloaded and to where it needs to go requires some manpower, work and
planning.

 

For reasons that I won't bore you with, the towers didn't go in the air in
2008.  Indeed they are just going up now, seven plus years later.  The word
"RECESSION"  has something to do with the delay.  :)  

 

So let's move on to the next step in the process.  You need holes in the
ground.  The foundation for the HD70 is 10 feet by 10 feet by 4.5 feet deep.
That's a very large hole (the tower foundation must be against "undisturbed
soil."  For the LD60, the hole is 7x7x4.5 feet.  Still pretty big.  I had my
landscaper dig the holes.  Mistake.  He didn't dig very good holes.  So,
years later, I had to hire an excavating company to try to square up and
clean up his holes.  This costs money.  Plan on $350 for a good hole by
someone who really knows how to run his backhoe or excavator.  It cost me
much more because I've had work done on the holes now three times (the third
being tomorrow morning).  However, my experience is not typical as most
installations wouldn't have a seven year delay between the digging of the
hole and the installation of the foundation.  

 

What's next?  Concrete.  Each tower takes a LOT of concrete.  The 10x10x4.5
HD70 tower, for example, takes a minimum of 17 yards of concrete.  Concrete
costs about $100/yard plus tax.  Not cheap.  And the hole won't be exactly
that size, so you will need more than 17 yards for that tower.  The ballpark
estimate for my two towers is 30 yards of concrete, and that's undoubtedly
conservative as the sides of the holes are not vertical.  At a minimum, I am
looking at $3000 for concrete, plus tax, and probably more.  

 

And did I mention that you need to hire a concrete contractor to make the
rebar cage and to supervise the "pour" of the concrete to keep the buried
tower "stub" level (it will want to shift in the rebar cage as the concrete
is poured and, if it shifts, your tower may not be quite vertical when
you're done).  So, you need to hire a concrete contractor.  Let me tell you
the facts of life:  (a) they are busy these days; (b) most won't want the
job because it sounds weird and they haven't done it before and they're
worried about getting the stub level; (c) it's a small, weird job and they'd
rather do what they know how to do and that they do every day; (d) they will
want to charge you a lot for this small, weird job.  So, be prepared for
contractors not calling you back, for contractors looking at your holes and
never being heard from again, and for getting bids that vary WILDLY in
amount.  I had bids from $5700 plus concrete to $13,000 plus concrete.  DO
NOT TAKE THE FIRST BID WITHOUT GETTING SEVERAL MORE.  This is time consuming
and very aggravating.  Keep in mind that my holes were behind my house, so
the concrete trucks could not get to the holes.  This requires use of a
concrete pumper, which is expensive ($700-$1000).  If your tower can be
located where a concrete truck can back up to it, that makes life simpler
and much cheaper.  I couldn't do that.

 

Now, you've built the tower (I'll get to that soon), and need to get it in
the air.  How do you do that?  You need a boom truck or crane.  This machine
needs access to the vicinity of the hole.  I say "vicinity" as I learned
that it may be better for the crane to be further from the hole than closer
- that depends on what tower you are putting up and how high you need the
crane to be able to access (in my case, about 88 feet for the second beam at
the top of the mast protruding from the 70 foot tower).  I would consult
with a crane operator before you dig the holes.  I need a 40 ton crane to
lift the tower (the easy part, actually) and then lift the beams and me and
a helper 88 feet up in the air in a man basket.  The crane costs $185/hour
portal to portal, so I get to pay $370 just for the crane to show up and
drive home, even without doing anything.  How much it will cost in total
depends on how long the job takes - probably not very long for one tower and
one beam right at the apex of the tower, but I'm putting up two tower, one
with a beam at the apex, but the other will have a 4 element Steppir at the
70 foot apex and a Cushcraft XM240 at 85 feet near the top of the mast - a
more complicated and time consuming job.  However, the cost of the crane is,
on the scheme of things, a drop in the bucket and worth every penny, in my
opinion.  It's the cost of the concrete and rebar foundation that came as a
shock to me, not the crane.

 

Now, to the quality of the AN Wireless towers.  The quality is unbelievably
good.  As I said, mine were factory painted.  The steel pieces and buckets
of parts sat in my back yard, unprotected, for SEVEN AND ONE-HALF YEARS.
Recently, I decided to go forward with the project.  I tried to lift the 5
gallon paint buckets of parts and couldn't budge them.  I don't know how
this could possibly happen, but each were filled with water, and I mean
filled.  The nuts/bolts/washers had apparently been literally under water
for years.  They appeared covered in whitish goo and there was some evidence
of rust and corrosion.  I immersed all the components in pure white vinegar
and left them for hours.  I then drained the vinegar, hosed down the parts
in the buckets, drained the water and repeated the process again.  Amazing,
all parts came mostly 100% clean.  For larger components, I had to scrub
them by hand with a nylon bristled brush (using the vinegar first).  This
included the step bolts, that initially appeared in pretty bad shape.
Amazing. Probably 95% back to original state and the remainder very
acceptable.  I then looked at the struts and legs, to find that pine needles
and tree crud had leached between the nested, bundled components, staining
them badly (remember, they were painted) and causing some corrosion.  Again,
scrubbing with the nylon brush and soap and water restored them.  I then
repainted each part.  The paint that AN Wireless used costs $100/gallon.
It's expensive, but good stuff.  Remember, no one who puts the tower up on
arrival will have to go through what I went through - my tower sat exposed
to the elements (and the parts immersed in rain water, apparently), for
seven years.  Bottom line:  these are incredible components, exceptionally
well galvanized.

 

I also need to comment on AN Structures' customer service.  I did not have
the instructions for the towers, as they were watery goo when I pulled them
from the water filled five gallon buckets.   Imagine my contacting AN
Structures and asking for help with an AN Wireless tower sold 7 years ago .
. . :)  Their service was exceptional.  They immediately emailed me full
instructions to assemble the towers, detailed drawings showing the
dimensions of every strut, leg, etc, and color photos depicting various
aspects of construction.  I had questions about the thrust bearings that I
had purchased (which fortunately were in the one 5 gallon paint bucket that
I had stored in the garage, instead of the back yard, so they didn't get
immersed in water for years).  While AN Structures tried very hard to help
me with information about those thrust bearings, ultimately I got the
answers to my questions about how to install the eccentric ring on this very
reflector.  Similarly, I had purchased in 2008 the cable fall arrest system
for each tower.  AN Structures sent me information on the system they
currently sell, but couldn't provide information on the components that I
had purchased seven years before.  Again, posting on this reflector produced
installation drawings for my components, which apparently are no longer
being sold.  Bottom line:  under these very bizarre circumstances, the
customer service of AN Structures was, in my opinion, excellent.

 

What's next on the agenda?  I have the construction of the rebar foundation
cages and the pouring of the concrete in progress, as I mentioned.  I now
have all my tower parts cleaned and repainted.  They are laid out in my back
yard on plastic sheeting (to keep dirt from splashing up with rain) and
ready to assemble.  As best I can tell, assembly is a two or three person
job but straightforward. It's just a giant "Erector Set" if you're old
enough to remember those when you were a kid.  The crane person tells me
that lifting the tower is a piece of cake. 

 

So, bottom lines:  (1) the AN Wireless tower is unbelievably well made and
well galvanized; (2) when erected, it will support a very large array
(depending on the tower you purchase but I am convinced it is WAY
OVERengineered); (3) the cost of the tower is probably 50% of the total cost
to get it in the air, the rest going to the excavating company, the concrete
contractor, for concrete, and for the crane company.  Painting of the tower
is expensive and not necessary, if you and your XYL/OM don't mind a large
galvanized metal structure in your back yard.  The painting helps the tower
to blend in very nicely.  (4) This is a big project.  It will eat up a lot
of time and effort.  (5) The customer service of AN Structures is excellent.
(6) Don't wait seven years to put your tower up.  :)  (6) Especially because
the struts are angled on this tower, as opposed to step-like on Rohn, guyed
towers, you MUST purchase the step climbing bolt accessory package or it
would be very difficult and unpleasant to climb and work on these towers;
(7) Similarly, I believe that you should purchase the cable fall arrest
system for safety reasons.  You have but one life to lose in a tower falling
accident - cost is just simply not a factor in this regard.  The cable fall
arrest system is designed to hook up to a full body climbing harness. These
are not cheap.  I'd check Amazon and then surf the web for various
manufacturers but keep in mind that you need the carabiner sold by AN
Structures to attach to the cable and the front/chest D ring of your
climbing harness, regardless of who makes that.  By the way, this climbing
stuff is VERY expensive.  You need a full body harness, the carabiner to
attach to the AN Structures climbing cable fall arrest system, a lanyard (so
you can work at the top of the tower) and a Y shaped shock absorbing fall
arrest lanyard with gorilla hooks (that you attach above you as you climb).
All this stuff adds up.

 

I may re-post as the project continues.   I hope to assemble at least one
tower this weekend.  As I have said, the concrete/foundation work has just
been contracted.  The crane has been reserved for July 31.  Stay tuned . . .


 

I hope that this is helpful to you.

 

73, Doug W7ZZ