OT - Power Pole Guy Wires

The name of this NG is not "OT"! Why don't you ask your local electric that question? All you're going to get are guesses and by gollies from here. Assuming you're not a troll, that is.

In news: snipped-for-privacy@r27g2000vbn.googlegroups.com, DerbyDad03 typed: ...

If you think that all I'm going to get "are guesses and by gollies from here", sit back and watch.

Assuming you're not a troll, that is.

First, I must take issue with the consistent use of guy wires. I think you should either use of mixture of guy and gall wires, or you should say, "affable young most-likely single person wires".

Or g-wires.

I gather the parallel pole has major wires in only one direction, so the g-wires are oopposite of that.

At the perp pole, I gather there is nothing, not a g-wire or a transmission wire, opposite the wires going to the parallel pole.

That's interesting. They may have some way to know nothing is necessary, some device that measures tension, or how vertical the polie is when no wires are attached, or they know from the length and weight of the wires that they aren't enough to need a counter force, but of course, then how come there are guy-wires at the perp pole. Oh, darn. I called them guy-wires. Now my girl friend won't lend me money for at least a week.

Come to think of it, I don't recall seeing ggg-stop hitting me-- wires. in more than one direction on the same pole.

But I once had occasion to erect 12 to 18 foot poles which were connected at the top by a wire, actually heavy monofilament, but they were called wires, and the poles were aluminum and light-weight. Where the wire.turned a corner, I would have to put in guy wires (All right, leave if you want to.) and I had to bisect the externior angle made by the wires at the corner where they met. I would tie the guy wire to a tree and there wasn't always a tree in the right spot, so I took the nearest tree, and I could feel the difference as I held the guy wire and moved it from the place I preferred to a nearby tree. But the line was light and nothing was thick enough to catch much wind, so I don't think anything ever fell down for lack of guy (Ha!) wires. Three or 4 times over 10 years a piece of alumninum tubing bent and the tubing folded.

The guy wire doesn't care where the street is-- it is offset some tension on the pole. There is either a bit of a corner, or a spur going off [or going to go off] any pole with a guy wire on it.

We never accounted for wind. I was on a telephone crew, so we had shorter poles, but heavier, and less aerodynamic wires. There were places we could put 10-12 poles in a straight line & none needed guying, even though the prevailing wind was pretty stiff on the mountaintops.

That what they do.

When we were doing it [at a little independent telco in the 70's], it was pretty much 'by guess and by gosh'- but some engineer probably has figured out the pounds of tension produced by a span of wires at a certain angle and a certain length. That strain will help hold a smaller lighter load in a different direction.

Plans for spur lines are sometimes in the works so when you put in the main line you put guy wires in for the spurs. They might go slack for a couple years until the spur gets built, then they get snugged up.

Jim

the guy wires are always 180 degrees from the load. If perpendicular to the street, then it's to offset the load of the drop opposite to the guy wire. If inline, then it may be a case of wire size changing. In front of my house the cable gets smaller as there is only two more houses north of me, so the guy wires pull against the heavier wire to the south. Look closely, and you'll see the reason for each guy wire.

The pole in front of my house is the last one. The guy wire is parallel to the street and will offset any pull from the wires on the opposite side. Wind is not a factor, at least on this pole.

They may factor in common sense too. Are the pole in front of a residence? Will the wire interfere with or be on private property? While the pole in front of my house is on "my" lawn, it is in fact on the right of way that I do not own.

FWIW, there are also two Poles in my house.

DD-

I'm not sure I'm following your pole descriptions entirely correctly but generally speaking......

The forces applied (by the electrical wires) to a utility pole must be resisted by

The utility company does what's easiest / most cost effective.

You'll see some situations at the end of a run, where the cables are routed underground, very large poles. These "dead end" poles are often not guyed and thus resist the forces by bending.

You'll see situations were a pole might be guyed in one direction but not the other. The loads in the un-guyed direction most likely are low enough to be handled by the pole alone.

Sometimes there will be a lone guyed pole without any electrical wires, just a horizontal "guy" to another pole, thus providing a "remote" guy when it is not possible to place a "local" guy.

The selection of poles & placement of guys is all about force balance.

cheers Bob

PS I guess Twayne was mistaken..... by golly :)

Jim Elbrecht wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

I have a related question: How are the guy wires held in the ground? What keeps the steel loop from coming out of the soil?

harry wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@k6g2000vbz.googlegroups.com:

That seems to be it, thanks. It helps when you know what they're called.

I can't imagine the force it must take to screw these things in, especially into the heavy clay soils of my area.

"Screwpile" appears to be a UK term. I find more American hits using the terms "helical anchor", or "helical anchor guy wire".

We had anchors that you had to dig a hole for. 4, 6, or 8' depending on what we thought was necessary. Then we got a new truck with the giant auger on it. That sucker not only dug pole & anchor holes-- it could twist one of those new-fangled screw anchors right into the ground without leaving a giant mess.

I'd love to see the rest of that picture with the 6 anchors coming out of the ground--- Where do all the wires go? What is under the ground? That's got to be the last tower on a high power line. . . ?

Jim

Just so I make myself clear, yes there can be compression forces in a pole but a guy wire does NOT take them out.

Jim Elbrecht wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Or a radio antenna?

We have a similar arrangement down the hill from my place. There are (I think) six power lines on the pole, and six guy wires. The pole is pulled back so tightly it's actually bowed. That's what got me thinking about why those anchors didn't pull out of the ground.

"Doug" wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

If anything, I'd think guy wires ADD compression to the pole, since they pull downwards as well as sidewards.

correct.

Lke I said: all junk, almost all guesses from non-experenced dummies. Go to a group where you're not OT and get a realistic set of answers.

Assuming you're not a troll, that is.

excuse me smartass, my answer was not junk.