Many places will define a utility corridor and that generally means you have to be on one side of the road. However, historically telco was on one side of the street and power on the other in many towns. When I first started, we owned all of our own poles and only attached to power where there was no way around it. Our poles were generally class 5 35 footers or 30 footers.
From: Kurt Fankhauser Sent: Saturday, June 24, 2017 8:01 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Avoid 'make ready' by using my own poles What is minimal pole size and cost for a small pole for communications wire? 25 foot pole? 5 foot in ground and 20 foot above ground? That would get you roughly 5 feet of sag allowance between poles since I was told 15 feet is the lowest your wire can be to the road. Also is there any ROW laws that give a county/municipality the right to deny you an application to set another row of poles on the opposite side of the road from electric poles when you obviously could place more wires on the electric poles? On Sat, Jun 24, 2017 at 1:26 AM, Jason McKemie <[email protected]> wrote: The NEC that the local power coop goes by is 40" below neutral for a conductive cable, and 30" for non-conductive. On Friday, June 23, 2017, Chuck McCown <[email protected]> wrote: The zone around primary conductors that you have to keep out of. Rule of thumb is 10 feet, but there are legal specs. Actually secondary too but that is normally 12-18 inches. From: Adam Moffett Sent: Friday, June 23, 2017 11:43 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Avoid 'make ready' by using my own poles This is going to be an ignorant question, but what is the clearance zone? ------ Original Message ------ From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Sent: 6/23/2017 1:16:21 PM Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Avoid 'make ready' by using my own poles You can’t force them to use your pole. Your pole cannot encroach on the clearance zone. You can always put your own poles in ROW that is clear from other pole lines. Across the street is probably fine depending on easements. You can always go underground for a span or two. That will be less expensive. From: Adam Moffett Sent: Friday, June 23, 2017 11:09 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [AFMUG] Avoid 'make ready' by using my own poles So, our most common make ready issue so far has been old poles that are relatively short and we can't stay the required distance from the power equipment and also be far enough above the existing phone line. Sometimes we can use a standoff or other solutions to avoid the issue, but sometimes the pole needs to be replaced. It's never less than $5,000, could be as much as $10,000. What I'm wondering is this: We can get a new 35' pole for $800. We can get a new 50' pole for $1500. Is there any reason I couldn't just avoid make ready expense by setting our own pole instead of using theirs? Even with guy wires, permit, and easements it's almost guaranteed to be less expensive. Maybe I would put a 35 footer on the opposite side of the road, for example. Or maybe we set the new 50 footer right next to theirs and even let them move onto our pole if they want to. It seems too easy and I'm wondering if there's a catch I'm not thinking of.
