I know that there have been a few discussions about the Maxis pole jack. There seems to be agreement that it would not be a productive tool to own. I completely agree, however I just bought one.
I contracted with a property owner to replace some parking lot poles that were being taken because of a road widening project. My contract was to remove the pole and install new bases and poles in a new location. The owner wanted to keep the lights on as long as possible. I got the call that they needed them down the other day. No problem, I show up with my torch and I look up while waiting for the crane and I realize that they have relocated the utility lines directly above my parking lot poles. The street light conductors are inches from the the heads. The crane shows up and says not a chance, maybe in the boonies, but not next to a major street.
Ok, so now what? I think about cutting the pole on three sides and pulling the pole down, but next to a major street and in a construction zone, probably not a great idea. I thought about strapping the poles to the forks on a skid steer, but with only inches of margin for error, not a good idea either.
I decided that the pole jack might be the answer. I have the 10k puller and the maixi grips and they are top quality, so I order the pole jack. It arrived quickly and is high quality. It works as advertised and did what I needed it to do. I will likely use it to install the new poles since I have it.
The downside, it is slow and takes some set up. If you have a couple of poles it is probably ok, if you have a whole parking lot, no way I would use it. If you needed to repull some wires between a building and the first pole, it would be great to get the pole out of the way if you did not want to try to work through the hole. It might also be handy to service a pole inside a building if it was going to require renting a boom lift that would be hard to get to the pole. You could use it to service a fixture in a parking lot, but generally we just hire out a guy that has a bucket truck and his only business is servicing lights.
Jim
I contracted with a property owner to replace some parking lot poles that were being taken because of a road widening project. My contract was to remove the pole and install new bases and poles in a new location. The owner wanted to keep the lights on as long as possible. I got the call that they needed them down the other day. No problem, I show up with my torch and I look up while waiting for the crane and I realize that they have relocated the utility lines directly above my parking lot poles. The street light conductors are inches from the the heads. The crane shows up and says not a chance, maybe in the boonies, but not next to a major street.
Ok, so now what? I think about cutting the pole on three sides and pulling the pole down, but next to a major street and in a construction zone, probably not a great idea. I thought about strapping the poles to the forks on a skid steer, but with only inches of margin for error, not a good idea either.
I decided that the pole jack might be the answer. I have the 10k puller and the maixi grips and they are top quality, so I order the pole jack. It arrived quickly and is high quality. It works as advertised and did what I needed it to do. I will likely use it to install the new poles since I have it.
The downside, it is slow and takes some set up. If you have a couple of poles it is probably ok, if you have a whole parking lot, no way I would use it. If you needed to repull some wires between a building and the first pole, it would be great to get the pole out of the way if you did not want to try to work through the hole. It might also be handy to service a pole inside a building if it was going to require renting a boom lift that would be hard to get to the pole. You could use it to service a fixture in a parking lot, but generally we just hire out a guy that has a bucket truck and his only business is servicing lights.
Jim