I would build a rubber tired trolley that will roll up the side of the smokestack. You can lower it to work on the radios and use the cable to pull it back up. Then you only need to go up and attach the pulley one time. If there is no activity in the smokestack, you can run the cable up the inside. Depending on the diameter, you could build some kind of spider type of thing with spring loaded legs to span the inside and get pulled up too. Then it would be stealthy.
I would love to work on this idea. I did a tower like this. Used one of those lighting fixtures common at major freeway interchanges. The whole lighting structure lowers on a trolly. From: Rory Conaway Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2015 7:24 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Smokestack towers The biggest lift I’ve seen is around 180’. From there you are looking at a crane for $10K per day. Almost cheaper to get a helicopter at that point. Rory From: Af [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Lewis Bergman Sent: Tuesday, September 29, 2015 4:14 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Smokestack towers You can build a 300 for tower cheaper than putting a caged last on that thing. I think you are on the right track. Insurance and backups. Insurance should be cheap adding it to what you already have. Maybe a cheaper alternative if you want to be able to climb it are pegs and a safety climb. Pegs with epoxy would take about two minutes each, one every eighteen inches, a hard full days work. I did something similar using industrial sized concrete anchor screws on the face of a brick building years ago. I climbed it last Friday and it is still solid. I think the least effort would obviously be the lift but I have no idea how easy it is to get a lift that big, or expensive. On Tue, Sep 29, 2015, 2:41 AM Eric Kuhnke <[email protected]> wrote: You price out 200' of caged ladder and installation on a 120 year old brick structure??? On Sep 28, 2015 7:40 PM, "That One Guy /sarcasm" <[email protected]> wrote: Get a mason to inspect it, have them install a caged ladder if its safe On Mon, Sep 28, 2015 at 9:32 PM, Jeremy <[email protected]> wrote: I have the opportunity to go up on some of the tallest structures around, but they are smokestacks built in the late 1800s. They are probably 300' tall. I can find a ton of examples of where companies have done this by searching 'smokestack cell tower' on Google Image search, but I have some real concerns. One concern, the stacks in this area seem to have been grandfathered in, as they have no warning lights on top. Two, we live in an earthquake zone. It is not a matter of 'if', but 'when'. So, these will likely come tumbling down. When that happens, are people going to point fingers at the company who added weight to the structure when it crushes someone? There are some obvious engineering hurdles (renting a crane every time there is an issue, or mounting low enough to rent a man lift, adding backup equipment in case of failure, etc.), but those can be overcome. I am primarily concerned about liability, and the potential for having to update the structure to include lighting. Has anyone on this list ever attempted something on the scale of a 300' smokestack from the turn of the century? Any pointers, or specific law firms that I should contact? Seriously debating just scrapping the idea.... -- If you only see yourself as part of the team but you don't see your team as part of yourself you have already failed as part of the team.
