Senior Citizen Condo Complex
Becomes Cellular Site

That rallying cry could be adopted by cellular companies looking to avoid confrontations over prime acreage eyed by real estate developers, or with numerous municipalities and neighborhood associations who say "not in my backyard" to new cellular towers.

With the recent change from analog to digital signals, cellular communication towers are needed every three to four miles to guarantee high quality phone reception. Analog signal towers were only needed every ten miles.

High buildings are being sought as antenna sites to replace traditional cellular towers (100- to 200-foot structures traditionally located along an interstate or on an undeveloped piece of land). The height ensures a quality digital signal.

In Quincy, Mass., a suburb of Boston, a cellular company chose the nine-story high rooftop of Town Brook House Condominium, an independent living complex for senior citizens.

"The Town Brook House is one of the taller buildings in the area," GS Metals District Manager Rich Lindsay said. "It's right off the main street, so it's a great site. It's so close to Boston that you can see downtown from the roof."

Not only does a rooftop arrangement avoid community resistance to building new cellular towers, but it also gives building owners another source of income.

"Town Brook House appreciated the opportunity to make some money," said David Ragsdale, project manager for Ericsson, Inc., the prime contractor in the building of wireless cellular sites. "The city of Quincy also liked the fact that it is low impact (can't be seen at ground level)."

The contractor installed a "sleeper system" for the cables consisting of 4x4 PVC tubing.

GRIP STRUT® Safety Grating from GS METALS CORP.. was installed above the cables to provide a rooftop walkway system connecting the four corners of the building, and guard the cellular cables from wind, water, heat and foot traffic.

"We have hundreds of sites like Town Brook House going up on the East Coast," Lindsay said. "Three years ago, we never would have thought of cellular sites as an application for GRIP STRUT. Now, the product is an integral part of almost one hundred rooftop sites in Boston alone."

This innovative GRIP STRUT walkway configuration creates a win-win situation for everyone: building owners are now able to use roof space to generate revenue, and the cellular companies can save time and money associated with building a free-standing cellular tower.

"A standard rooftop site like Town Brook House consists of several walkway planks," Ragsdale said. "The GRIP STRUT bears weight that otherwise might damage the roof."

The GRIP STRUT Advantage

GS Metals GRIP STRUT Safety Grating (the original safety grating) features a unique serrated surface providing maximum slip protection under practically all environmental conditions. GRIP STRUT is ideally suited for all walking/working surfaces where mud, ice, snow, grease, oil and detergents create slippery or hazardous conditions. The open design lets liquids pass through to keep the grating surface clear.

It is available in a variety of gauges in galvanized steel, aluminum and stainless steel. Configurations include widths from 4 3/4 to 24-inches, standard lengths of 10 and 12 feet and side channel depths of 1 1/2 to 4 1/2 inches.

Before safety grating walkways were specified as rooftop walkway systems, solid steel troughs covered the PVC piping that held the cables. But, a major problem with solid trough was that it collected extreme heat during sunny weather. Also, the solid steel surface of the troughs was smooth and slippery and was unsafe for maintenance personnel who had to walk on it. In contrast, GRIP STRUT features an aggressive surface that provides traction in almost every condition, while still protecting the cables and rooftop surface.

GS Metals fabricated a special configuration for the site to make GRIP STRUT even easier to install. The walkways are 11 3/4", 18 3/4" and 27" wide, with a turned-down side channel. The open-diamond design protects against wind lift.

"The configuration we use from GS Metals with flanged sides is extremely convenient for us because we can bolt the sides directly to the sleeper system and not to the roof," Ragsdale said. "We use it in almost every job we build for the cellular companies."