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Taking Down Antenna Tower

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Robie

· Radical Basement Dweller
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Discussion starter · #1 · (Edited)
A good customer of mine wants this tower down and removed. I have few thoughts about how to go about it, but would like others thoughts.
What I have at my disposal are: One guy who's not afraid of heights, plenty of sturdy rope, come-along, assorted tools. The house is 2 story with a flat roof.
If the tower is leaned anyway away from the house, it will meet some massive oaks that are not climb-able, so hooking on to them is out.
My thoughts were to place 2 bales of hay on each side of the roof edge. Attach ropes on the tower on the front side and back side to reach the ground, cut out some inner support braces a little more than halfway up, grind off 2 of the main supports until it starts to bend (controlled by the opposite end rope) and let her down easy on the bales of hay. The bottom section can be lowered towards the camera as it will miss the tree trunks.
Ideas, please
View attachment 1366
 
#2 ·
You might be able to get some pro with insurance to do it and take it for free. My neighbor just had one taken down and although I didn't see it i think your ideas are along the lines of what I see left of his tower.
 
#3 ·
Anyway to rent a big bucket truck/or telehandler (big extendable forktruck you see on every new construct project) have your guy secure small sections and cut and remove in pieces?

Your idea is no different than felling a tree, but man things get get ugly real quick if any little thing goes wrong. Heck, if need be cut it apart it baby man sized chunks just to be safe.
 
#4 ·
Yeah, if you got a willing monkey on the crew, what's stopping doing it slow and low tech with a grinder and a cutting wheel and taking off 3 foot sections at a time down to the roof line?
 
#6 ·
Robie said:
A good customer of mine wants this tower down and removed. I have few thoughts about how to go about it, but would like others thoughts.
What I have at my disposal are: One guy who's not afraid of heights, plenty of sturdy rope, come-along, assorted tools. The house is 2 story with a flat roof.
If the tower is leaned anyway away from the house, it will meet some massive oaks that are not climb-able, so hooking on to them is out.
My thoughts were to place 2 bales of hay on each side of the roof edge. Attach ropes on the tower on the front side and back side to reach the ground, cut out some inner support braces a little more than halfway up, grind off 2 of the main supports until it starts to bend (controlled by the opposite end rope) and let her down easy on the bales of hay. The bottom section can be lowered towards the camera as it will miss the tree trunks.
Ideas, please
View attachment 1366
Click to expand...

Funny about what we had to through years ago to get a few channels to come in on the boob-tube. Well Robie sounds like you have some good ideas to ponder, so I'll just say Good-Luck we're all counting on you!:jester: :thumbup: :laughing:
 
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#9 ·
A tower that tall is worth some bling. I guarantee you that if you put a "free, must dismantle and haul" type ad in the paper for that, you'd get some calls. You could probably even sell it as a dismantle and haul yourself deal too.

If I was taking it down in such a confined area, I'd probably scale it with a battery sawzall and saw off 3' lengths and throw them down into the yard.
 
Discussion starter · #10 ·
I thought about an ad but am wondering how you'd make sure the thing was brought down safely. I can just visualize a bunch of jerks coming to take it away and doing damage to the house. I would be the one responsible, as this belongs to an older widow who relies heavily on me to take care of her place.
Any thoughts on that?
 
#11 · (Edited)
Robie said:
I thought about an ad but am wondering how you'd make sure the thing was brought down safely. I can just visualize a bunch of jerks coming to take it away and doing damage to the house. I would be the one responsible, as this belongs to an older widow who relies heavily on me to take care of her place.
Any thoughts on that?
Click to expand...
Yeah, that changes the picture entirely.

Your felling proposal gives me the willies. Not being scared of heights myself, I'd scale it and chunk it up before I'd try to fell it or bend it or whatever. Chopping that thing even halfway up and trying to ease it's fall onto hay bales on the roof sounds darned risky. That's an aweful lot of weight on a very long lever.
 
Discussion starter · #13 ·
Well, two things there. The house sits back from the street about 40 feet. The front yard is full of trees, so getting close would be nearly impossible. Getting to the backyard, even more difficult. Behind me (I'm taking the picture) is a lake about 25 feet away. To lower the whole thing with the trees and other homes in the way looks to be impossible.
I would assume though, that it was erected years ago in that manner, with a boom truck bringing sections into place and bolted together as it went up. Trouble is, there is a lot more stuff growing than there was 30 years ago.
I think I know the answer to this, but will ask anyway. Climbing to the top shouldn't pose any hazard as far as the tower leaning/braking should it? I mean, it has been in some pretty stiff winds and hurricanes in its 30 years and is still there. The gent that I think :whistling would be doing the climbing probably comes in at 165 lbs. What'ya think? Safety harness, 4" grinder, rope and just go for it?
Oh yeah, I'm thinkin' $600 to make it disappear. Any thoughts there?
 
#14 ·
I've put up and taken towers down like that. Not too bad, have you tried simply unbolting it? Check out the base, that tower should easily support two workers and two of you could unbolt and lower/toss down pieces. Be careful though, you gotta toss them down flat or they'll tear up the lawn big time. I can almost guarantee that tower was assembled by hand, no crane involved at most a gin pole to raise pieces.

If it doesn't unbolt than it loses all resale ability. Only the scrap dealer will buy it once it's cut up. If you can unbolt it, charge her the $600 (A professional tower erector would be charging about a grand for the same job) and tell her you'll dispose of it for free. Then contact a local ham radio club, put an ad in their newsletter and grab an extra hundred bucks or so for the tower.

You could also grind the bolts off and try removing the first piece as it would be the lightest.
 
#15 ·
Robie said:
Well, two things there. The house sits back from the street about 40 feet. The front yard is full of trees, so getting close would be nearly impossible. Getting to the backyard, even more difficult. Behind me (I'm taking the picture) is a lake about 25 feet away. To lower the whole thing with the trees and other homes in the way looks to be impossible.
I would assume though, that it was erected years ago in that manner, with a boom truck bringing sections into place and bolted together as it went up. Trouble is, there is a lot more stuff growing than there was 30 years ago.
I think I know the answer to this, but will ask anyway. Climbing to the top shouldn't pose any hazard as far as the tower leaning/braking should it? I mean, it has been in some pretty stiff winds and hurricanes in its 30 years and is still there. The gent that I think :whistling would be doing the climbing probably comes in at 165 lbs. What'ya think? Safety harness, 4" grinder, rope and just go for it?
Oh yeah, I'm thinkin' $600 to make it disappear. Any thoughts there?
Click to expand...
I would climb up there before letting my employee, because if it is safe enough for him it's safe enough for the owner. I guess if you were to go for bending it in the middle I would still want to prevent it from completely breaking off. In other words I wouldn't want to be the guy cutting it and having it swing out. I did something simular and it went like this. Before cutting in half you tie ropes above the cuts and tie other ropes below the cuts and put metal rods on a long rope into both ropes making a splint. Then when your on the ground pull the rope and it's detatched except the way you want it to bend is still fix hinged. Now I had lots of climbing gear so 2 guys wearing harnesses bleyed behind direction of fall keeping it moving slow. What could make it go easier is if you could get up in the oak as high as you could and mount a friction pulley, from antennea to tree pulley to ground where you want it to land. The friction makes it lighter when it gets below level of pulley.

I think it could be done with the right equiptment, some rope, but it would need a lot of planning and a little physics. Proceed with caution in the hard hat area...

Bob
 
#19 · (Edited)
Robie said:
Yeah, that's what I said when I first saw it. What the hell is a nine way flat plane?
Click to expand...
When I was a kid I was into am radios. Until my mom got a letter from the FCC threatning to take the house. I was shutting down the police frequencys and killing all the cable connections and phones in a 4 mile radious of my moms house. I had what you call a dirty connection.

I was doing c.b competion skip shooting. That means the guy with the biggest amp and signal strength won. We would talk over the world. If you have a c.b go to channel 6 and listen to the guys talking. We dubbed it the SUPER BOWL channel.

What is a 9 way flat plane? It is a directional antenna. Point it towards russia and talk to other operators. That antenna on that pole is called a MOONRAKER. OR SHOGUN beam antenna. It is by far kick ass with all respect. I used to run a 5K watt amp on a 25ft tower.

If you look and see on that antenna it might have a gear box also for rotation. I would go to a local truck stop and ask to speak to the c.b radio repair guy take the pic and ask him to get rid of it for you. I would cleanly pay 2k for that tower and setup if I was into it still.
 
#20 ·
All you need to do is call a ironworker. They have nerves of steel. Here is the way you take it down. Climb it not on a windy day. Why? Solid at the bottom but when you get on top the width is decreasing you will feel sway. See how the thing its put together. Probably with screws. Just take it down section at a time. When i say ironworker i mean the guys who build skyscrappers. I sure you have a ironworkers union somewhere grab a guy have him take a look. You should have seen a while back. They were installing a new antenna on the sears tower it was awesome. They had a special helicopter and there were a hand full of iron workers on the pole doing some final adjustments those guys were made of steel.
 
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