Taking bets on what fails first

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sdbob

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The pole or the anchors.. at least I think there's anchors. There's 23' of light pole on top of this mess, and there's 6 more just like this one. Crazy...
 

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stickboy1375 said:
Im curious why it failed? How old are the poles? Looks like you have a nice air gap underneath to allow any water to dry.
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It was watered regularly (the top of the base is just a few inches above grade), and it's about 5 miles to the ocean.

Note the gussets from the previous patch attempt, and the extra anchors. I submitted a bid, and it's ugly. There's only one fix in my opinion... raise it.
 
sdbob said:
It was watered regularly (the top of the base is just a few inches above grade), and it's about 5 miles to the ocean.

Note the gussets from the previous patch attempt, and the extra anchors. I submitted a bid, and it's ugly. There's only one fix in my opinion... raise it.
Click to expand...

grade would be an issue, surprised they were installed so low.
 
sdbob said:
It was watered regularly (the top of the base is just a few inches above grade), and it's about 5 miles to the ocean.

Note the gussets from the previous patch attempt, and the extra anchors. I submitted a bid, and it's ugly. There's only one fix in my opinion... raise it.
Click to expand...

Maybe if you put guy wires on all 4 sides they can get a little more life out of it.....

Make it look like a radio antenna....:)
 
For no more than what can be seen in photo - looks like a good chance they were fabricated locally and are not galvanized, or have other corrosion resistance. Although I don't find anything in NEC saying that is not acceptable (outside of a judgement and 110.3), it probably contributed to the situation. A galvanized pole may have lasted longer.

Maybe I'm wrong, the base cover sure looks like it wasn't made at typical pole and accessory manufacturing place, but maybe it is a replacement as original was corroded away or otherwise destroyed or lost.
 
kwired said:
For no more than what can be seen in photo - looks like a good chance they were fabricated locally and are not galvanized, or have other corrosion resistance. Although I don't find anything in NEC saying that is not acceptable (outside of a judgement and 110.3), it probably contributed to the situation. A galvanized pole may have lasted longer.

Maybe I'm wrong, the base cover sure looks like it wasn't made at typical pole and accessory manufacturing place, but maybe it is a replacement as original was corroded away or otherwise destroyed or lost.
Click to expand...

The poles were factory made. The bolt cover looks hand made, and the poles have had gussets welded to them, but originally they were standard 20 - 25' powder coated bronze 4" square poles.

However... with the discussion here and after some thought I began to look for a better reason that these poles failed so miserably. Check this pic out... another pole, same job. It clearly shows an impression of the base plate template from when the concrete standard was poured. It's visible on this pic but present to varying degrees on all of the bases. The original contractor either set his template too low or over-poured the base, either way resulting in a miniature swimming pool in the center of each base.

Not only is the standard not a convex dome as it should be, it traps water and the bolt covers shade the sun making for longer evaporation times.

Built to fail.
 

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Look real close at that first pic and you can see the depression left from the bolt template used to secure the anchors prior to pouring.
 
Be sure to consider the soils. Out there on the Oregon coast I have seen lots of just sand. Make sure you have a engineer design you a proper base for sand and coastal winds.
I would go fiberglass poles. Last service change I did out there the meter main was only 5 years old completely rusted parts of it gone, replaced it with stainless meter base and had to move the main breaker back to back in the house.
 
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