Re-setting Electric Pole & Panel Pictures

[Obed]

We hired an electrician to put up a 16 ft electric pole to provide power for a camper. Here's the pole he put up. I had my wife call him to find out if he set the pole in concrete. Unfortunately he didn't. Also, the pole was only set 2 ft in the ground; that's not very deep for a 16 ft pole. I decided to pull the pole out of the ground and re-set it with concrete. This thread shows the pictures and description of how we did it.

 

[Obed]

We paid $500 to the electrician for this job including parts. Since we had to completely re-do the job including disconnect and reconnect all the electrical boxes, I've been wondering why we paid $500 for something that we had to spend 2 whole days to do again ourselves. In all fairness, the electrician had to make three trips to the property. Had the job been done well, the price would have been fair. In conclusion, I've decided we paid $500 because of ignorance - we didn't know how to do the job ourselves. After seeing how the electrical pole was put together, the work was straight forward.

 

[EddieWalker]

Just for anybody else needing to put one in, you can buy them already put together. I paid less than $300 for a 200 amp panel ready to go according to my local power comany.

Just drill the hole, put it in and call the power comany.

Eddie

 

[Obed]

The electric pole consists of 6 main parts.
1. 16 ft. 6x6 pressure treated pole
2. Plastic 2" conduit running to the top of the pole and weather cap to keep rain from running down the conduit
3. Meter box
4. Mobile home circuit breaker panel box
5. 30A RV jack
6. 20A GFCI receptacle

When the electrician met us at the property to talk about what we wanted, he wanted to put up one of those self-contained RV boxes with a built-in breaker and receptacle. Fortunately, my wife had already gone to Lowes and bought a mobile home circuit breaker panel box and a 30A RV jack. The mobile home circuit panel box and RV jack is the much more flexible option plus it's less expensive than the self-contained RV boxes. With the mobile home circuit panel, we can add breakers for other things like a well pump, electric gate, outdoor light, etc.

 

[gordon21]

Can you get those pre-made pole assemblies for places that use underground feeds? I am still a month away from getting a temp pole. The local power company will not give you temp power until they inspect the footers?

 

[Obed]

Just for anybody else needing to put one in, you can buy them already put together. I paid less than $300 for a 200 amp panel ready to go according to my local power comany.Eddie

Eddie,
Where do you get one of these "ready to go" panels on a pole? Do you have a picture of one? Does it already have the conduit at the top installed?
Obed

 

[EddieWalker]

McCoys is a local hardware, lumberyard that I have an account with. They sell them ready to go. I priced out the parts and realized that it was cheaper to get theres already done.

Sorry, no pictures.

Eddie

 

[Obed]

I am still a month away from getting a temp pole. The local power company will not give you temp power until they inspect the footers?

Gordon,
Our power company will provide power for three situations.
1. Permanent power to a structure
2. Temp power when building a house (or other structure)
3. RV

If you want to put up a pole for a camper, then there is no reason to inspect footers first. If you put up a pole configured like ours, you can power whatever you want off of it and not have to wait until you have footers for a house poured. Tell the power company you want to put up an RV pole. If you don't have an RV, you don't have to tell them you don't own an RV.

For us to get power to the RV we first had to get a septic layout ($250) from the local county office. We didn't have to have put in the septic system before getting power. After putting up the pole, we had to have a state electrical inspector inspect the pole (another fee). Then just call the power company to hook up electricity.
Obed

 

[Obed]

I was hoping to be able to pull the pole out of the ground without have to take the electrical boxes off, re-dig the hole, and put the whole thing back in the hole with concrete and be done. Well, it seems these things never go the way you want.

I couldn't figure out a good way to lift the pole out of the ground with my FEL without potentially damaging the assembly. Thus we removed from the pole everything below the meter box.

Here's the meter box with the cover removed. We unscrewed the plastic and metal collars. We also disconnected the bottom two hot wires (black), the neutral wire (white), and the copper ground. We also disconnected the ground from the ground rod. Notice that our ground rod is angled. We typically have no more than 2 or 3 feet of dirt on most of our property before hitting the solid sandstone base. Thus the rod must be driven into the ground at an angle.

 

[randy41]

i set a 16' 6x6 in the ground for the electrical service drop for my trailer. this was 18 years ago. no concrete. no problem.