What to do with a 100' tower?

[Red Green]

"The Post Quartermaster" wrote in news:L9idnbZsUo92L9nRnZ2dnUVZ [e-mail]:

You can be a drunk and not drink ya know...

If you don't understand that, be thankful.

[JohnnyD]

Well, you can be an alchoholic and not drink, but to be a drunk involves drinking.

[Steve B]

Keyword: thinking. A friend of mine wanted to buy a corner lot for a convenience store. Not a gas station, mind you, just a store. He was very excited, the price was right, and the owner "motivated". He dug a little deeper, and it seems there was a gas station there previously, but not for about 25 years. So long that most of the locals didn't remember it, but county records never forgets. The tanks were still underground. The owner is responsible for HazMat and other environmental cleanup and remediation.

Long story short, had he not dug a little, and found out just what the law was, he could have snagged the property for a good price, but then had to spend millions on it to clean it up to an acceptable federal standard.

Investigate, because, to me, if this thing was able to be knocked/torn down and sold for scrap, it would be gone. There's some reason it's still there. And if you buy the property, you will assume all the liabilities that are involved with the tower. Which may be none, or which may be expensive to have it torn down according to industry standards. Unless, of course, some vandals snuck in there in the night and torched one of the guy wires, the wind was right, and gravity did its thing.

Steve

visit my blog at

[Robert Green]

Would you have just said "nevermind" if you had your balls burned off by not just hot but scalding hot coffee? Somehow, I doubt it.

"A vascular surgeon determined that Liebeck suffered full thickness burns (or third-degree burns) over 6 percent of her body, including her inner thighs, perineum, buttocks, and genital and groin areas. She was hospitalized for eight days, during which time she underwent skin grafting. Liebeck, who also underwent debridement treatments, sought to settle her claim for $20,000, but McDonalds refused."

When defendants refuse to pay reasonable claims because they know they can

*mostly* skunk the little guy, they often suffer punitive damages. What might have cost them as little as $20K ended up costing close to a million because they wanted to play hardass. Problem is they ran into a lawyer with a harder ass than theirs that kicked them around they way they deserved. Sometimes it's smarter to fess up than to fight. McDonald's was serving unreasonably hot coffee according to the testimony given, just 20 degrees shy of boiling. Other establishments and home drinkers usually serve/drink coffee at the 140 degree mark or thereabouts. That can cause burns, but nowhere as serious as 190 degrees can.

McDonald's coffee, as served in the restaurant, was undrinkable because it would have caused severe mouth and throat burns, so why make it so bloody hot? They did it because a) they were idiots and b) a consultant told them to. Since the suit, they've turned the coffee thermostat down. They just wanted to make a million dollar fuss out of being made to do it and they got what they asked for. How anyone but a franchisee can love anything McDonald's does is beyond me. Just look up "pink slime beef" and "McDonalds" and you might not want to eat there anymore. Or maybe ammoniated centrifuged floor scrapings are your cuppa tea.

It turns out 700 other people had been burned by McDonald's unusually hot coffee in much the same way, and some of those cases involved servers mounting the wrong lids or mounting them improperly and basically tossing a cup of nearly boiling water in the victim's lap.

The trial judge called McDonalds' conduct reckless, callous and willful because they *knew* the product, as served, had seriously injured over 700 people before. Sometimes it takes a big lawsuit to force a huge corporation to stop selling bad tires, runaway cars, scalding hot coffee or salmonella laced peanut butter. Usually, a number of people have to die or be seriously injured before anyone notices.

Lawyers serve a very valid purpose in the Corporate States of America. You can bet that hungry teams of them are going to be kicking BP's well-deserving ass all around the Gulf of Mexico and the process will have a deterrent effect on other idiot drillers who don't follow safety rules. McDonald's makes more coffee sales in one day than they paid out to that woman. It's chump change for them.

-- Bobby G.

[Tom Horne]

Bobby You left out one of the many salient facts that came out at trial. The coffee was served that hot so that it could not be drunk quickly subjecting the staff to request for free refills which would have cut into profits. That was discovered by the plaintiffs investigators in McDonald's own files.

-- Tom Horne

[HeyBub]

I betcha if you advertised this tower for free on a ham radio site, there are amateur radio operators who would drive 500 miles with their trailer, tools, and friends to take it down. They would be looking at a five thousand dollar tower for a week-end's work.

[Steve B]

And it all involves choices. Disease? Piffle. Weak willpower.

Steve

[Evan]

Right... Except you are dealing with a commercial structure here and as the legal owner of it, the OP would not want anyone who isn't insured, licensed and properly trained to construct/dismantle such a tower on his property...

If it is to be dismantled that would require a demolition permit and a company with a small crane to properly dismantle it...

If you think there is liability in the tower potentially falling down and hitting nearby houses or from adventurous local kids trying to climb it, the amount of liability you would be opening yourself up to in allowing an unqualified and uninsured individual to do that sort of work on your property even if their only compensation was being able to keep the tower after they took it down is in a whole other league... The BIG league... Even if the only person/people hurt is/are the people dismantling the tower if there was some kind of an accident...

~~ Evan

[krw]

You'll put your eye out.

[Tony]

Good, now I don't have to bitch at you. For what it's worth, while there with a realtor to see inside the building. I measured the 3 corner tubes. They are about 2.75" outside diameter maybe a little less. Who is the tube guy here who knows standard tube and tube wall sizes? I am assuming they are "tubes" and not "pipes".

[Tony]

Hey what's going on? Is Bill here?

[Tony]

I never bought the disease bull either. It's simply an addiction.

[Tony]

There is no way in hell that it can be taken down safely without a crane. That is with it being usable again and not killing anyone. I can't imagine what each 20 foot section weighs.

[Tony]

No, only the next door neighbors would see it.

[HeyBub]

You raise some good points which, if it were my tower, I would totally ignore.

Amateur Radio operators are quite bright - brilliant actually - and can easily compute the hazards, their abilities, and the tools required. Remember, the requirements you mention - permits, experts, insurance, government oversight, and expensive equipment - gave us the BP oil spill while it took an ordinary plumber to gin up the fix.

[Tony]

Sorry guys, I forgot to post this link here.

[Red Green]

Tony wrote in news:8akeuoFfniU2 @mid.individual.net:

Of course ;-)

[Percival P. Cassidy]

But ham radio operators do not have to pass examinations in mechanical and structural engineering. The tilt-over, crank-up, self-supporting towers that are marketed to hams are one thing, but this is quite another. Smart hams call on experts -- and insured experts at that -- for jobs like this.

"Perce"

[Steve B]

From real estate standpoint, this whole thing is suspect. Those towers USUALLY do have fenced areas, and the property description would have any exclusions or easements on it. In addition, disclosure would have to indicate such a small thing as a very high tower complete with guy lines. The OP is so buried now in thread drift, that I have made no attempt to quote him.

But, if I was the OP, and was considering getting this property, I'd make sure that it did not include a permanent easement, that it did not exclude the property under the base of the tower, and that the maintenance and or removal of the tower were in the disclosure. As I mentioned in the previous post, he might be buying an expensive remediation project.

Steve

visit my blog at

[Pete C.]

Try around 300#-400# per section. Google "gin pole" to see how these and much larger towers can and are assembled and disassembled without a crane routinely. Many tower sites provide very poor access for large cranes and it is far less expensive to assemble the towers without a crane. Then you have the "real" 2,000' TV transmission towers that are far too tall to be assembled by a crane.