Planting A Telephone Pole

Harv · Feb 8, 2002

Okay, so I'm a little short on good tractorin' stories since I've only been on my 'Bota once in the last couple of months.

But since this happened right in my suburban front yard this morning, I thought I'd toss it in just for the heck of it.

The telephone pole in my front yard was tagged for replacement, and the first crew showed up at 7 a.m. to get started. Mind you, I had things to do today, but for some reason the power went off in my house. /w3tcompact/icons/eyes.gif Only thing that was working was my digital camera, so I did the natural thing and snapped a few pictures. The only part I witnessed that was of any interest was the digging of the hole. I know many of y'all have posthole diggers for your tractors, but you just gotta appreciate having the right equipment for a job such as this.

The attached picture shows the rig they used and the general scale of the thing. I was tempted to find out if they had any old augers laying around that I might get a good price on, but then it occurred to me that my L2500 would be unable to lift it off the ground, let alone screw it into the ground.

The guys told me that the drilling would take about 10 minutes, and then I told them the story about how the backhoe had to give up when they were digging my pool in the backyard, and had to finish the job with dynamite (it really happened). They half laughed and went about their task. An hour and a half later I got bored watching them dig and went to the gym. When I came back, the new pole was in place and they were just wiring it up. When they saw me, they said, "yep, that was some hard [censored] dirt down there."

I missed the pole planting itself, but what I'm looking forward to now is when the next crew shows up to pluck the old pole out of the ground. I'm told it's a pretty interesting machine that does it, so let's hope I can get some pictures of it.

Bill_in_MI · Feb 8, 2002

Harv,
Thanks for the pics. Aside from the topic it looks soooo nice to see blue sky and green foilage. We are hitting the cabin fever part of the season here in Michigan. Please send a shot of the explanting if you get a chance...or of the mailman, pizza delivery, anything that does not have snow in the background!

cowboydoc · Feb 9, 2002

What's even more impressive Harv is the hydraulic tamper that they use to put the poles in. I would LOVE to have one of those for doing fenceposts!!

Robert_in_NY · Feb 9, 2002

On the backside of our property there are high tension lines running and the poles are around 60'-80' high, I have never climbed one to really find out but they are 2' in diameter on the bottom. The machine they use to install and set these is one of the largest crawlers this side of the mining community. It has a crane attached to it to drill the holes and lift and set the poles. I will have to get a pic of it next time I see it as I am sure you orange people will like it since it is orange anyways. Have fun and try not to work to hard.

MikePA · Feb 9, 2002

<font color=blue>What's even more impressive Harv is the hydraulic tamper that they use to put the poles in.</font color=blue>

I always thought they were pneumatic, or am I thinking of something else? I recall a This Old House episode where they used a long cylinder shaped device that had an air hose coming in the top and a plate on the bottom and they used it to tamp the earth as they backfilled the hole.

Joe_W · Feb 9, 2002

When they installed 2 new electric poles at our new house, they used an air-powered tamper to pack the dirt around the poles. That's all I've ever seen them use around here, but maybe they use different equipment in different parts of the country.

Joe W.