[TowerTalk] Tower buried section legs -- Buried in

[Jim Thomson]

Date: Fri, 29 Jan 2016 09:59:54 -0800
From: Jack Brindle <jackbrindle at me.com>
To: Larry Loen <lwloen at gmail.com>
Cc: TowerTalk <towertalk at contesting.com>
Subject: Re: [TowerTalk] Tower buried section legs -- Buried in
Concrete or Below the Concrete?

The big problem is condensation in the tower legs. It doesn?t matter if water can?t get into the legs, moisture will, and then will condense when the temps drop. That water collects over time and will rust out the leg. Thus, you really want to leave the leg open at the bottom (thus the pea gravel) so the moisture will drain.

- Jack, W6FB

##  agreed.  u gotta be nuts to embed the legs into concrete.  I saw one fellow yrs ago, across town, who had one leg fill with water, expanded...and ripped up the inside of the leg over a 2 ft section above the concrete. 
In some cases, the legs have rusted from the inside.  When the tower was removed, a form had to be built around the tower, to pour concrete in, just to make tower removal safe, like aprx 1/2 cubic yard. 

##  pea gravel has been known to plug a leg hole.  What might work better is a  2-4 inch layer of sand  above a 6-12 inch layer of pea gravel.   I used to cap off the ends of my booms...until one day I removed the 15m yagi,
and it was really heavy.   Once down,  I took one cap off, and the entire 26 ft boom  was full of water !   That only took 2 years to accumulate. 

##  sure, a pier pin base will work good too, but how much twist do you think you will get on a properly guyed tower ?? 

Jim  VE7RF