Fire Tower Restoration Piercefield, New York

 

Kelken anchoring products were used in the foundation retrofit of a historic fire tower on Mount Arab, located in the town of Piercefield, New York, in the northern part of the Adirondack Mountain Range. The footing were crumbling apart from old age and the anchor bolts were rusting in the harsh conditions. David Vana, a specialist in fire tower repair and restoration performed the retrofit of the tower footings.

 

The original footings were drilled into the Gneiss rock that makes up the mountain. Concrete footings were poured as a leveling platform for the base of the original tower legs which were anchored in the rock surface. To replace the footings and reanchor the tower without taking it completely down, it had to be done 1 leg at a time. David and his team hauled in the necessary equipment and stayed on the mountain for a couple of 4 day / night work sessions to get the job completed.

 

 

The legs had to be braced and jacked up one at a time. The old and decaying concrete footing and anchor bolts were removed from under the jacked leg. When closely inspected the old anchor bolts were nearly rusted through. The restoration proved to be a timely undertaking. After clearing the concrete and chiseling the rock to a fresh surface, new anchoring holes were drilled into the Gneiss rock. The new footing was constructed in several steps. First new stainless steel anchor bolts were set with the help of Kelken Products, Keligrout polyester anchoring compound into the Gneiss rock. Next the concrete footing was framed in and reinforced with stainless steel rebar before the cement pour. On the bottom the new anchor bolts secured a mounting plate to the top of the new concrete footing. The new anchor plate bolts to the tower leg securing it on the top side of the footing. Kelkens Keligrout anchoring compound and stainless steel anchors were used on this feature project.

 

Using the Kelken Products, Product Instructions and their personal Advice was invaluable, David Vana quote.

 

David Vana of Bloomingdale, NY performs fire tower repair, removal and reassembly across the county. He has an existing inventory of towers that have been taken down for safety and liability reasons from publicly accessible areas. Towers are occasionally purchased and then reassembembled on private land for observation and entertainment purposes.

DAVANNA LLC – Fire Tower Restoration – 518-891-4802

 

 

A Little History

 

Fires devastated the forests of the Adirondack Mountains in the early 1900s New York began constructing a network of permanent steel fire towers to replace wooden towers that were expensive to maintain. The Mount Arab fire tower was originally constructed in 1917 and served as a functioning lookout for forest fire activity into the 1980's. At that time airplane observation began taking over the duty of spotting and reporting forest fires. For about 70 years the Adirondack region of New York was services by a reliable network of fire towers spread 12-16 miles apart. Many of the structures have been taken down as a safety precaution or have succumbed to the harsh mountain top environment they most often occupied. Some of the towers remain today and are still in service as scenic lookouts for hikers and nature lovers in general across the region. The fire tower on Mount Arab is one still being used today. It was taken over and is being maintained by a local environmental group, Friends of Mount Arab. The Mount Arab fire tower is open to the public with full access. Reaching it requires about a 1 mile hike up a well maintained mountain trail.

 

Informational Links

 


http://www.friendsofmtarab.org
 

http://www.tupperlake.net/MtArab.htm