# Post and Beam Observation Tower



## rainman (Sep 27, 2009)

This is one of my bucket list projects . Something like a fire tower, just not as high. It's one of those crazy leftover Ideas from my youth. Carefree days in a treehouse. I have two Ideas that I've kicked around. The first is the tower about thirty feet high with internal stairway to a hatch on a platform approx. 10 ft square and a substantial railing surrounding it. The second Idea is to take my workshop which is only 10×14, very sturdy post and beam and set it atop shorter tower of maybe 20ft high! I might build the stairs on the outside of this ,rising to a small deck at the front door. I've done post and beam before but haven't designed a tapered structure of this size. I'm NOT looking for someone to design this for me. I just thought i'd throw out a couple of crazy Ideas and see what kind of feedback I would get. So if you have any Ideas,advice,experience or tower design info I would appreciate your input. Thanks , Rainman


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## swirt (Apr 6, 2010)

No ideas, but it does sound like fun.


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## cabmaker (Sep 16, 2010)

I say go for it.


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## CaptainSkully (Aug 28, 2008)

My buddy Eric wants to build an office/treehouse that has a rope suspension bridge from the 2nd story of the house.


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## WagonWillie (Sep 6, 2009)

This sounds like a very similar design to the old water towers you see on old farms, at least the ones out here in CA. They had a tank mounted on the second story, stairs either inside or out, and sometimes a tiny living space below, more often storage or a small work area. This allowed wind mills, which didn't pump much water, nor did they not work on still days, to slowly fill the tank, which provided storage as well as water pressure. Google images for "Wooden water tower" and you'll see lots of examples.


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