Raising the tower

The raising of the tower for the final time with the wind turbine on it was exciting. The neighbors came to watch and help. Safety is a prime concern - our rule: all winching must be done from outside the crash zone . The tower weighs 1500 lbs and the turbine adds just 200 to this. The manual recommends using climbing ropes of specific strengths and cautions about knots. It also uses vehicles such as light trucks. We chose to use 5/16" galvanized wire cable as it is far stronger and easier to get. Some very important safety considerations are: use only thimbles, clips and blocks that are intended for the purpose, never use a block without a gate or latch and never loop the wire over something such as ball hitch. Murphy says: If it can come undone it will!
We used a combination of tractors and winches. Winches give the slow steady pull needed at the beginning of erection and the end. A tractor in first gear will creep at 1 mph - no truck can do that. Our winches were mounted on the draw bar of the tractor. If you use a stationary truck you will need to mount it on the hitch preferable class 2 or higher.
Near the end of the erection a tipping point is reached where the tower and gin pole are just balanced. At this point the gin pole is still some 8 feet in the air!. As you go past that point the gin pole will come down fast. The manual says to catch it and lower gently - IT WEIGHS 500 Lbs.! Unfortunately we could not find an expendable village idiot. Our solution is quite simple - we ran an extra 1/4" wire cable from the lower guy wire point through a block on the piling opposite the gin pole to another winch. This cable allowed us to lower the gin pole slowly and also allows us to pull the tower down for service. When pulling the tower down, the alternative is to swing on the guy wires like a deranged monkey! - -sorry I did not get a picture of my 250 lb buddy trying it! When pulling the tower down, the same tipping point is reached were we transfer the load from the pull down winch to the erection winch. It is absolutely essential that the erection cable be controlled and snug. We added a permanent safety cable from the end of the gin pole to the piling so the gin pole can not go past 100 degrees.
Once the tower is up and the gin pole down the gin pole has to be secured to the piling with a 3/4" bolt and nylock nut as detailed in the manual that comes with the kit.

Finally, after all the preparation, the tower was raised and we had electricity! I was so excited.