[TowerTalk] Rebar Cage for Foundation

[Patrick Greenlee]

A rebar cage is not rocket surgery or brain science!  To give you better 
advice you need to give some details on the tower to rebar cage 
connection.  There are several methods of connecting the concrete to the 
tower base.  My Tashjian 70 foot crank-up/tilt-over has bar stock 
protruding vertically downward from all three legs of the tower. The bar 
stock is 3 inches wide and each of the 3 pieces of bar has 6 holes on 2 
1/2 inch centers.  Similar steel bars with matching holes for 3/4 inch 
bolts are set in concrete and bolt to the tower.  The bars in the 
concrete are welded to the rebar cage.

Having fairly recently become a "bionic man" (pacemaker defibrillator) 
I'm not supposed to weld so bought the cage built from Tashjian 
(excellent materials and workmanship) but if I had it to do over I would 
have hired a local welder to do the welding and I would have done the 
assembly in prep for that myself.  My foundation (as per Tashjian 
drawings) is 4'x4' square and 8 ft deep.  I formed up an 8x10 ft 
rectangle centered on the 4x4 hole using 2x6 lumber (5 1/2 inches wide) 
to give me extra tilt resistance and a nice place to stand when doing 
anything at the tower base. I used significant quantities of rebar to 
tie the 8x10 slab to the 4x4 central core of the composite foundation.

There are numerous other tower to foundation designs.  To offer 
additional assistance I think most of us here would need more info about 
your specific tower mating system to be able to give actionable advice.  
I am happy to offer more assistance if you can supply more details and 
maybe someone else has some good ideas for you too.

If you don't weld and have no access to a good welder then buy the cage 
pre-built.

Patrick        NJ5G



On 5/4/2017 11:37 AM, Joe Partlow wrote:
> I need to pour a base for a TMM-433HD tower but first I need a rebar cage.
> Do it myself or hire someone and who would I hire?
>