Pole Inspections: Protecting Poles

The strength of the grid depends a great deal on the quality and resiliency of wooden structures to keep the lights on and people safe. 

Pole owners go to a ton of trouble to make sure that the right trees are prepared the right way and are built using the right standards to keep anything from going wrong. 

All that work and those poles can still be compromised by termites and rot.

The Pole Inspections Process 

Part of building and maintaining a strong grid is ensuring the integrity of poles within that grid.

Pole owners are required to inspect their poles at regular intervals to make sure they haven’t been damaged by insects, elements, car accidents, etc. 

Inspection requirements vary by state. In Pennsylvania, utilities have to inspect their poles at least once every 10-12 years. (There are some exceptions based on treatment and pole class.) 

Every pole within a utility’s footprint must get drilled, and each year a random sampling is identified for inspection. Some utilities use a data-driven model to identify what poles are more likely to be compromised to prioritize potential hazards.

Different utilities may use different inspection routines, but boring is one of the easiest and most common ways to check for rot. Using pressure-sensitive drills, inspectors drill into the pole at several different heights and average the readings for more accurate results.

 Engineers use the inspection data to filter out failing poles and try to fix the problem poles with trusses or fiber wrapping. If the pole continues to fail, it’s marked for replacement. 

The Tensions of Testing

While it’s a pretty extensive process, it’s incredibly important to make sure the grid isn’t compromised—one faulty pole can bring down half a dozen poles in a hurricane. 

Unfortunately, there are some areas of pretty significant tension within the process: 

• False Passing/Failing - While multiple drilling locations make the process more accurate, false pass/fail estimates are really costly. False failures lead to unnecessary replacements or restorations that up the costs of reliability. But there’s an even greater cost when false passes create an unstable grid that threatens the safety of the community. 

• Invasive Methods - Different types of inspections present their own problems. While boring holes are filled in with plugs, there’s still the increased potential for moisture and rot. More intensive and invasive methods are more time-consuming and can shorten the life span of the pole, but they give greater confidence in the real level of decay. 

• Sampling Volume - Pole owners can have hundreds of thousands of poles in their footprint. Every year they have to inspect thousands of those poles, with each inspection taking anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes to check. 

Improving Inspections

While some of these tensions are an inherent part of inspections (there will always be thousands of poles that need to be checked), there are ways we can improve the process to minimize pain and frustration. 

1. Finding new techniques. While boring is the most popular method, there are other ways to inspect poles that aren’t as invasive. Sounding tests for decay by hitting the pole with a hammer and listening to the sound. 

2. Staying on top of the process. With so many poles to inspect every year, it’s easy for bottlenecks to occur and backlogs to grow. Steady, consistent processes can help shrink pileups.

3. Improving the tools. While the pole owner manages inspections, automated tools, and more intuitive deliverables help improve workflows on your end for a more effective process. 

Better pole inspections aren’t just about double-checking to make sure assets are protected. It’s about creating a better grid all around. Ongoing asset management and maintenance are just as important as guaranteeing safety within the make ready process.

Check out the North American Wood Pole Council's Tech Bulletin for more info about the life of wooden poles.

Thanks for reading! We’re building out Katapult Pro to address problems like inspections to build a better grid. For more information about our pole inspections solutions contact us at hello@katapultengineering.com!