Just before Thanksgiving I was sent to this store for a site pole hit by a plow, not unusual this typically means the pole is bent and needs replacement or it is broken and completely down.

When I pulled in this is what I found.









People where going about their business parking under this and walking under it.

When I asked someone why they did this they told me if it was unsafe the area would be roped off.

So I used "electric line below" yellow tape to keep people away.

First was a call for extra help (I was by myself) then a call to purchasing to get a bucket truck from the company we rent them from.

I was told no help and no bucket truck, were available.

At this point I was thinking about undoing the nuts and letting it fall, then dragging it out of the way with my truck.

Luckily our purchasing dept. was able to send out a 60' man lift (a 25' would have done it, but you take what is available ) and a all terrain forklift, also a friend in the company was able to slid out of their job and come help me.

The chain fall to my truck was just to keep it from going any further.

After sitting for 5 or 6 hours in the truck waiting for the equipment to arrive it was a quick job to pull it down.

[This message has been edited by iwire (edited 04-17-2004).]

Bob,
What did you replace the base with, a new tube base ?, and were you able to splice the base wiring, or did it need a new pull ?

It appears, from the photo, that there was about 8-12" of concrete in the ground for this pole?
Is my perspective correct on that? Do you live in a completely windless area, with no thunderstorms ever and perfect compaction?

I gotta know.

Where is the rebar in the base? I didn't see anything but concrete and conduit.

The store had a excavating contractor come out and work with us to replace this.

We did get lucky, we dug up the three PVCs entering the base and cut them open, once the backhoe held the base straight we were able to pull the conductors out.


That is what it looked like when I was there in person, I was thinking how did this stay up for the 10 years or so since the building was built and what about the 10 or 15 other poles?


That turned out to be the real issue here, the base went down another 4' but without re-bar in it.

The 'snowplow' in this case was a large articulated loader and it broke the cement base where you see it, all that was holding the pole was the PVCs being stretched between the cement.

The new pole base got a re-bar cage inside it.

Bob




[This message has been edited by iwire (edited 04-18-2004).]