Ground Anchors for Dummies

ground anchor screw

Although most of our DIY DotD awardees win for mangling the instructions they've cribbed, occasionally we find someone who – more or less – gets it right but manages to completely blow the lead-in to the instructions. That's how we spotted today's candidate, John Walker of HomeSteady.com: it was because of the desperately doofus introduction he penned for an article entitled "DIY Ground Anchor."

We have to admit that no one on staff has ever made a DIY ground anchor, simply because none of us has ever needed one. However, we were pretty certain that Walker was overselling his case with his introduction:

"Exterior buildings, such as sheds or tents, are subject to high winds. Any building that is not secured blows over readily in a solid gust of wind."

We think John made a few mistakes there:

1. He should have used the word "temporary" instead of "exterior."
2. Maybe he should have said "may be" instead of "are."
3. Any building? What about the Pentagon or the Taj Mahal? 

And then there's the way he manages to contradict himself within two sentences:

"You should always anchor your buildings using materials made for that type of construction, but that can get expensive. A cheaper, do-it-yourself option involves using rebar and a shovel."

Always? Cheaper? Make up your mind, John! Moving right along, Walker does have a few more problems with his delivery. Take, for instance,

• "Cut two lengths of rebar with an angle grinder based upon the structure you will be anchoring." – How do you base an angle grinder on a building?
• "Bend the rebar by hand until the end of the rebar is hooked" – "[By] hand"??? Ever bent rebar, John?

• "Place 3 to 4 inches of the rebar into a vice..." – Why don't eHowians ever learn that the tool is a "vise"?
• "You can use three strips of rebar with the second and third at an angle to each other below the ground for increased stability." – Errr, whaaaa???

If a competent DIYer puzzles through Walker's instructions (which may take long enough that you simply decide to go elsewhere), he or she could probably create a reasonably secure anchor. Then again, three three-foot lengths of rebar will cost more than half as much as a commercial anchor, so what's the point? Well, the point is that our Dumbass of the Day made ten or twenty bucks for this crap, and that's all that counts...

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