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I have just finished the base for my new Mega Tree for the 06 Display. It is the base plan that Darryl offers. I was wondering how others Mega Trees have stood up to the wind. I live on the Texas/ New Mexico Stateline so we have some pretty nice wind in Dec. and the rest of the year as a matter of fact. The tree will be 21' tall. I am going to use 2 3/8" pipe as the center support, so the tree will be pretty sturdy. There will be a fitting cemented into the ground about 3 or 4 feet. I will have 4 guy wires at the top of the tree which will also be cemented into the ground about 1.5 to 2 feet. I just want to make sure the tree will stand up to 50 or 60+ MPH winds. Any suggestions or comments.
You know I think we make this mega tree thing way to difficult.
First, if properly placed you only need 3 guy wires for 21' of anything. Make sure you use turnbuckles to tighten the wires. I used 2" black steel pipe. Look for the complete discription on other mega tree sites here. Plus some pics on my website of the mounting system. I will say this. Had a hurricane about 25 miles from us and had sustained winds of 60-70mph with gusts over 90 and it did not move. When I took it down yester day it to a total of 4 minutes and about 10 seconds to take the mounting base out of the ground. In fact I walked the entire system lights and all down by myself. Wife and daughter just kept the lights pulled back so I would not walk on them.
Of course if you want to concrete a pipe in the middle of your yard and 4 big old guy stakes then go ahead but glad I do not have to cut the grass and weedeat around all of them for the next 20 years.
Just remember the old saying that I try to live by: KISS. (oh better explain what that is as someone may think I am doing the kiss thing, LOL). It means Keep It Simple Stupid. And I may not be stupid but sure am dumb sometimes.
Thanks, I did not know if I need 3 or 4 guy wires. As for cementing the base in the ground I plan on cementing the base in the ground a few inches under ground level. I plan on doing the same thing with the guy wire stakes. I will put a cap on the tree base to prevent it from filling with dirt during the year. By doing this we can mow right over then and never have a problem.
John Pidliskey wrote: I agree with Robin, 3 is all you need, put them in a 3-point system, meaning a congruent triangle.
wouldn't that actually make a pyramid? Just kidding. As a lot of mathmaticians will tell you, 3 is the best. Best way to balance out equally. I personally think I would go straight to 6 ties if I thought I needed anymore, start with 3 add if needed.
cuonebay wrote: I have just finished the base for my new Mega Tree for the 06 Display. It is the base plan that Darryl offers. I was wondering how others Mega Trees have stood up to the wind. I live on the Texas/ New Mexico Stateline so we have some pretty nice wind in Dec. and the rest of the year as a matter of fact. The tree will be 21' tall. I am going to use 2 3/8" pipe as the center support, so the tree will be pretty sturdy. There will be a fitting cemented into the ground about 3 or 4 feet. I will have 4 guy wires at the top of the tree which will also be cemented into the ground about 1.5 to 2 feet. I just want to make sure the tree will stand up to 50 or 60+ MPH winds. Any suggestions or comments.
Thanks, Matt
Hey Matt,
If you get the high of winds I would go with more then three. It all depends on where your tree is and will some sides be blocked from the winds. After this year I will probably over tie down my trees. Although the winds were terrible here this year I did learn a lot.
On Nov. 21 we got tons of rain followed by constantly blowing high winds. My 35’ tree looked like a sail boat. 160 strings were shaped like a sail. The winds were pushing us around. Eventually the winds found our weakest link. All our guy wires were tied to trailer anchors, but the rain turn this Georgia ground to pudding. Once one anchor got pulled out of the ground the wind kept working on it and tipped the whole tree over in one piece. Click here to see a picture.
We did rebuild and added two more guy wires for a total of 6. A week later we knew more bad winds were coming, but we did not know it was going to be for 48 hours. And we did not know they were going to be worst then the previous winds. We had minimum damage and rebuilt again and the second 24 hours of the 48 hours we had no damage, so after that I knew we would survive the rest of the season. When you go through what we went through, all you think about is quitting. But the best thing about it is I have a lot of people trained, so this year it will be more fun, especially since I have a whole year rather then 2 months.
If you have pictures of where you are going to place your tree, take a shot from across the street and post it here.
____________________ Darryl Brown http://www.Christmaslightshow.com
**New** Complete Mega Tree Kit. Home of Virtual Santa, Strobe Lights and PVC Christmas Tree
The tree you did really looks great!. I looks much better then the one I built my first year. The base you are using is a new version I built after my first year. I never got to use it. If I don't get some 16' metal trees made for this years display, I will probably built a slightly smaller version.
____________________ Darryl Brown http://www.Christmaslightshow.com
**New** Complete Mega Tree Kit. Home of Virtual Santa, Strobe Lights and PVC Christmas Tree
Darryl,
That tree you built is huge (even with it bent over). How did you get it back up in the air? I now know how heavy these tree's are (with the tree topper, star, pole, light strings, etc.). Your base worked out pretty darn good. I just needed to weight it down with the cinder blocks, tape the lights down, and zip tie the snap connectors.
The only thing that took time was putting the light strings up. How do you do it? It took me days to do. I can't imagine putting up the number of trees you did.
Wayne Kremer wrote: The only thing that took time was putting the light strings up. How do you do it? It took me days to do. I can't imagine putting up the number of trees you did.
This is why I love our system. It goes up in under an hour, and only took about 15 minutes to come down.
RZHILL wrote: Got a question for all the Mega tree folks.
What height to base diameter do you use?
Since most 100 light sets are 27 feet long you cannot center the set in the middle , right?
Answers please , I'm gonna get this thing right the first time (I Hope).
RZ Hill
RZ,
Usually the base is half of you height as a general rule. When I built a different size tree I go to my pole (flag pole in most cases) and tie a tape measure to the top and run it the way I will run my light sring, if I come short I know my height has to come down or my base has to be smaller.
Your right you have to build a tree to the light set. I use com. 50' long strings. This year the tree was 35' tall and I had the lights forming a skirt on the ground. If I go to a 40' tree I will have to loose the shirt.
____________________ Darryl Brown http://www.Christmaslightshow.com
**New** Complete Mega Tree Kit. Home of Virtual Santa, Strobe Lights and PVC Christmas Tree
My pole is 21' long with about 19' sticking up out of the sleeve in the air. Using Darryl's tree base, the diameter is 10'. That being said, the pole could have gone about another foot up with about 5' left of Target lights and 2' left of Lowes lights. The leftover is just continually wrapped around the bottom of the base until you run out.
Wayne Kremer wrote: Darryl,
That tree you built is huge (even with it bent over). How did you get it back up in the air? I now know how heavy these tree's are (with the tree topper, star, pole, light strings, etc.). Your base worked out pretty darn good. I just needed to weight it down with the cinder blocks, tape the lights down, and zip tie the snap connectors.
The only thing that took time was putting the light strings up. How do you do it? It took me days to do. I can't imagine putting up the number of trees you did.
The tree weighs over 450 pounds. We did not get that one back up because it twisted the base. I luckily had a new break down base to replace it. We took that one a part and started from scratch.
I like the way you used the black tape. We left our untied so the wind could move them and make a path. It is a pain to have to go back and adjust everytime it was windy. Why did you use center block on the base. I did not have anything on the base. If the pole is guyed, then there should not be any problems. If it was going to move you could make some U bolt anchors.
My tree has a crank system with the cable inside the tube. I crank the hook head down to me, hook the lights on and then crank it back up. Then we weave one channel at a time. If you have three to four people on it you can get it built in one day.
On you tree it look like you are doing it the way I would. I seen a picture of the tree adapter for hanging lights. My first year we uses 128 string and a telescopic pole. With that weight it was hard to get it up. It took two of us to get the pole and and it was a struggle. If I had to do it again I would do it your way.
The first time I built the big metal tree base, each channel controlled 5 light sets. I would tie 5 together so i could keep the channels in order. That was not the best way because the group of 5 light sets would twist and turn as we pulled them up and we wasted a lot of time untangling the lights. After we rebuilt our tree I decided to just hang all the lights and mark where they ended. By doing this I did not have any tangled lights. When I got them up I would grabbed the first 6 stings (this tree had 6 strings per channel), weave them to the shape of the tree and connect it to the first channel. None of the light got tangled and the tree looked perfect all the way to the top. I was so happy I learned a better way to do the tree.
____________________ Darryl Brown http://www.Christmaslightshow.com
**New** Complete Mega Tree Kit. Home of Virtual Santa, Strobe Lights and PVC Christmas Tree
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