How to repair?
Posted: Sun Apr 11, 2021 3:59 pm
Since there is a dearth in new topics and just ran across these pics again last week as a reminder. here is a topic for reference. I had a Front Range work trip planned and got a call the day before leaving on a rebuilt 8 x 33 that was installed over a year ago. Customer doesnt live at the site and told me the tower was leaning badly and wanted me to look at it. He was out of the area and couldn't provide any pics so said I would look at it since I would be close.
On the 5 hour drive to the Front Range, I tried to think what would be the issue. I was surprised on what I found and am pretty sure it was vandalism.
The rig is not hooked to the tower yet
Three broken X braces, all bolts out of one tower anchor, 3 of 4 bolts out of another anchor on same side and a badly bent corner leg where the brake handle was.
A front was coming in as you can see from the pics and the mill was furling. It was leaning badly as you can see the ladder leg is nice and parallel to the side of the building behind it. When I tried to shut the mill off, pulling on the brake handle only served to buckle that corner angle of the tower more. It wasn't safe to climb the vertical ladder rung as it wasn't attached to an anchor.
As I was assessing options of what to do, the storm worsened and it started to rain. Time to get in the truck and think some more. Weather radio provided info that the wind was only going to get worse. A day later the winds became known as the derecho storm.
I just had normal windmill service tools along. I did have my climbing harness but this rig I had is only a single line so I couldn't position the main line to attach to the tower and hook myself to the sandline with the remote and do my "Peter Pan" routine to attach the mainline to the tower. I didn't feel it was safe to climb the tower to get the mainline attached to the tower. There was another well service guy about 20 minutes who I just came to know when i bought a Smeal off of him 10 months ago but wasnt sure if two guys scratching their heads made sense. Since it was still raining, I decided to use a lifeline and call a windmill friend that has been doing it longer than my 20 years. We came up with a plan and it worked and was mostly safe.
This was 4 hours later. I had to hand make the three X braces that took some time so you know getting it stabilized, tower leg straightened and re attaching went pretty smooth.
So rather than say now how I did it now, I am always interested in how someone else might have approached it to see if I could learn a different approach.
I am not sure how this mill was still standing, I guess Aermotors are so good you only need two good legs
So, how would you approach this? There are 2 clues in the last pic on how I did it.
Ron Stauffer
Montrose CO
On the 5 hour drive to the Front Range, I tried to think what would be the issue. I was surprised on what I found and am pretty sure it was vandalism.
The rig is not hooked to the tower yet
Three broken X braces, all bolts out of one tower anchor, 3 of 4 bolts out of another anchor on same side and a badly bent corner leg where the brake handle was.
A front was coming in as you can see from the pics and the mill was furling. It was leaning badly as you can see the ladder leg is nice and parallel to the side of the building behind it. When I tried to shut the mill off, pulling on the brake handle only served to buckle that corner angle of the tower more. It wasn't safe to climb the vertical ladder rung as it wasn't attached to an anchor.
As I was assessing options of what to do, the storm worsened and it started to rain. Time to get in the truck and think some more. Weather radio provided info that the wind was only going to get worse. A day later the winds became known as the derecho storm.
I just had normal windmill service tools along. I did have my climbing harness but this rig I had is only a single line so I couldn't position the main line to attach to the tower and hook myself to the sandline with the remote and do my "Peter Pan" routine to attach the mainline to the tower. I didn't feel it was safe to climb the tower to get the mainline attached to the tower. There was another well service guy about 20 minutes who I just came to know when i bought a Smeal off of him 10 months ago but wasnt sure if two guys scratching their heads made sense. Since it was still raining, I decided to use a lifeline and call a windmill friend that has been doing it longer than my 20 years. We came up with a plan and it worked and was mostly safe.
This was 4 hours later. I had to hand make the three X braces that took some time so you know getting it stabilized, tower leg straightened and re attaching went pretty smooth.
So rather than say now how I did it now, I am always interested in how someone else might have approached it to see if I could learn a different approach.
I am not sure how this mill was still standing, I guess Aermotors are so good you only need two good legs
So, how would you approach this? There are 2 clues in the last pic on how I did it.
Ron Stauffer
Montrose CO