Telegraph Poles

[TWR]

With the amount of Electric poles been blowDown and causing misery to hundreds of people / families, why the hell don't they replace the wooden poles with metal ones? no maintenance, no blowover's, or is that too simple?

[sandyRoe]

'Who pays...' We would.
But maybe it's not just poles breaking. There might be trees falling on the lines or a build up of ice on them.

[Baldric]

Most damaged poles I've seen have been uprooted rather than snapped so metal poles wouldn't make any difference.

[rockyracoon]

There's a metal 02 mobile phone mast just up the road from me, it's had a battering and bits are hanging off it, I hope they don't fall whilst someone is walking past.

[mikey4444]

There isn't a special problem with wooden poles breaking, even this last few weeks. The overriding problem is that cables and wires are being brought down by the very high winds, for BT, as well as the lecky companies. Changing over to metal poles would make very little difference.

Anyway, as someone has already asked....who is going to pay for the replacement ? We must have 100,000's, maybe millions of poles in the UK, some of them serving both telephony and electricity. We used to have some called The GPO and the Electric Board, but now we have a plethora of companies, all trying to make huge profits.

[The Builder]

A pole near me was moved recently, and replaced with a metal one. Mainly because it carries 3-phase mains, BT, and a street lamp.

The millions of them in the countryside will probably remain as wooden one since they are a fraction of the cost, and carry lighter loads.

They rarely break, usually just uprooted.