I just had a horrible experience with Sonotube- the product and the company.
A couple of weeks back, we were setting posts. We used 10 new sonotubes and a couple of older ones i had in my shop. As i went to the store to buy the under calculated last bag of crete, I returned to a tube slumped over, and quickly watched all the new tubes fail. None of the older failed. The tubes were set 4′ down, backfilled to grade and were exposed no more than a foot and half. All ten tubes within 30 mins began to sweat around the seams and then soon either busted, toppled or started to uncurl. I quickly called the company to seek advice. The manager told me than that they truly were a faulty product and that there was no error on my part. He then offered to pay for the new tubes- Ha, the days of lay out, excavation and set up and concrete adds up to alot more mess than having a couple of cardboard tubes repayed for. My lumber company has been trying to help me on this matter, but Sonotube has been dragging there feet for the past few weeks- putting my project on hold as they say “we want to fix this mess” Now after three weeks, they want to see the failed tubes standing up- funny, how they dont understand that concrete either needs to be in a tube or disposed of, other wise one will have a horrible mess.
So I am just putting it out there to the building community, be wary of these cardboard tubes- when they fail- its a big mess as i have to excavate the 4′ of crete and redo the entire project from the beginining. As the homeowner barely able to afford the project and did all the excavation by hand, you can probably understand how frusturating this is.
Going to go try the redi-footing system now
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Wow! Bummer!!! Got Picts?
I hope you have them. If so, how about posting one or two? As a construction management type, I most always take pictures of things that go wrong - for later - just in case.
And BTW - you do mean the actual Sono-tube (sp?) brand - right? I've seen/used other knock-offs. Sounds like what you had just didn't have enough water resistance. (Obviously). Did you happen to notice a difference between the old and new tubes? Different color? New ones thinner? New ones made in Sumatra? ;-)
I guess though that it is pretty common for a mfg to only warranty their product - not the collateral damage caused - even though it doesn't seem right. Warranty is limited to product replacement... bla bla bla.
We don't usually backfill until after the concrete has set. Have you always done it the other way?
That wouldn't matter in this case - the failure was above grade/backfill.
my first read on this tiotle was "Watch out for falling ..." and I had a picture of someone getting bonked on the noggin...
i'd have just reached for my roll of re-inforcing tape to wrap them with and gone on with life.