Utility pole removal

[btswass]

So we bought a small farm all set up with barn and paddocks but there is a utility pole in the paddock and another one just outside. We’re trying to get the electric company (central hudson) to remove the poles and we’re going to put all the wires underground. The central hudson field rep said it would cost $375 to remove the poles but now the estimators are trying to make us pay a ton to do it. Does anyone have any experience with this? Can we make an argument that it poses a risk factor to the horses? We’ve had some problems with people letting themselves into the paddock to read the meter/do stuff with the utility pole which is not ok. Any suggestions on getting these poles removed without getting charged an arm and a leg would be much appreciated.

A little more info: our property is residential zoned and the paddock was installed after the utility pole was put in (I’m pretty sure at least - this is a 200 year old house and NO records of anything on the property including 15 year old barn in county records office making our lives even more difficult)

[Robin]

I can tell you how we got this done but I am afraid it will mostly be for amusement and not a path you can follow. We had a line of power poles that ran through our pastures when we purchased our farm. The poles had likely been set when electricity had first come to the farm. We were at the very end of a several mile long run from the nearest substation.

One summer day we were preparing to host our annual schooling horse trial and my DH was out in the pasture mowing around the jumps with a push mower. He bumped a power pole with this small mower and the pole promptly fell over, cutting power to everyone on the run from us to the substation (many farms). Of course the power company had to send a crew immediately to set a new pole which cost them a good bit of overtime expense. The foreman of the linemen mentioned the pole likely dated from the 1920s and should have been replaced well before this so no blame was put on us for the pole falling.

Then the next winter one of the poles further out in our pasture caught on fire!
The insulator broke and allowed the line to arc to the wood which started on fire. It was late winter and ground was thawing and turning to mud. The linemen who came to do the repair realized they could not take their truck into the pasture without getting stuck and severely damaging the pasture as well.
So the lineman had to put on spikes and climb the pole with a chainsaw to cut off the top of the pole (to remove the burning wood) and then replace the insulators and wires. On a pole date from the 1920s. In a pasture where another pole of the same vintage had fallen over the previous summer when the property owner hit it with a push mower. I don’t know how they decided who had to climb the pole but I know none of them wanted to do it.

Then the next summer we had a visit from the electric company engineer who explained that the company wanted to change the easement to run the power line along the roadside rather than through the pasture. We agreed (happily)
to the revised easement and negotiated a new underground drop (previous one was overhead) from the line to our farm entrance at no expense to us.

So, if you can engineer a couple of electric line disasters that are not your fault
and you don’t mind being without power for several hours and also making life a bit unsafe for some hard working linemen, you too can get your electric company to move the power pole out of your paddock.

[btswass]

What a crazy story! I don’t remember seeing anything about an easement in our title. I’m going to look through it tonight. Because if its not on the title then we can force them to move it for free. I think that’s my only way out of this

[Jim_in_PA]

If those poles are on the property and are only supplying power to the property from the lines on the street, they they are likely the property owner’s responsibility as were put in privately…even if the power company was contracted to do the work. If they are part of the local distribution network and are just “passing through”, then it’s a bit different.

Do the poles have power company numbers/designation on them. (usually a metal sign of some sort mounted on the pole at a readable height to identify the specific pole. If yes, then they are owned by the power company. If no, they they are likely part of the property. (note that this may or may not apply in some geographies.

[ReSomething]

The neighbors’ power didn’t have an easement either and forcing them to move it wouldn’t have been cost effective, we settled with we paid to shift the wires to new poles. We didn’t need to remove any of the old ones.

I would have LOVED to shift the whole mess to the property line and the dedicated easement the sub-dividers drew up, but the power company just ran them straight over and the owner at the time was too foolish to care about the future potential problems.

[susanne]

When we built a new house on our existing property, we already had an old power pole, but decided to run our power underground. Our PUD considers this to be in their favor, eliminating downed power lies, so they removed the old pole for nothing. (They also ran the new power lines for free – we just had to pay $800 for our excavator to trench.)

I learned from talking to the PUD engineer overseeing our project that these things are negotiable, so you might try talking with the power company to see if anything can be arranged.

[SquishTheBunny]

I left mine up in the paddock…it makes a decent post to hang a hay net lol.

[js]

We have 2 utility poles in our pastures, each has a security light that comes on at night giving illumination to the pastures. Made a huge difference in the horses getting spooked by monsters at night. I’ve never had issue with the poles being in the pastures other than when the utility company needs to work on them. They have a habit of letting themselves in the pasture!

[btswass]

The two poles only supply our power. I checked the title and there is an easement from 1933 for the poles. The power company has actually been great and were only going to charge $300 to remove the poles but the estimators are trying to charge us a ton. The field agent for the power company is trying to go over them but if not looking into other options. The pole wouldn’t really be a problem except its in the middle of where I want to build my arena. And my husband thinks its an eyesore. Plus the lines are so low near the house we can’t drive under with the tractor

[Jim_in_PA]

That latter part is a serious safety issue…power lines are supposed to be totally out of reach!

If the power company is going to be laying the new underground lines and doing the hookups, it would be nice for them to just include pulling the poles as part of that process. They have the ability to just grab them with their equipment and work them out of the ground just as they do when they replace a pole along the right of way.

As an alternative (not the best choice) get the lines moved underground, dig down around the poles a couple of feet well below where your future surface will be and cut off the poles there. They go in the ground about 8’ or so, and it’s not practical to try and pull them without the right equipment. Some local electrician may also have a truck with the correct gear to pull a pole, too.

[btswass]

Agreed. Not to mention the transformer on the pole is completely covered in poison ivy and spreading since we can’t remove it.
We were going to dig the lines ourselves with our backhoe and a friend is an electrician and was going to do all the work. All we need the power company to do is remove the old poles.

[clanter]

[QUOTE=Jim_in_PA;8590670]
They go in the ground about 8’ or so, and it’s not practical to try and pull them without the right equipment. .[/QUOTE]

the standard depth for a 40ft pole is 6 feet/25 ft pole is 5ft

see page 103 of attached
http://www.shirazedc.co.ir/DorsaPax/userfiles/file/Ebook/The%20Lineman’s%20and%20Cableman’s%20Field%20Manual%20-%20Shoemaker%20&.pdf

[sk_pacer]

How odd for them to charge to remove their poles - here, any poles up to and including the transformer and meter pole belong to the power company and they replace/remove without charge; the same applies to telephone poles where there is above ground wire. I live in a ‘trouble’ spot - a place where the power line splits and goes west and north so they have been here many times to replace the poles at the turn points and every time was their cost.

[Jim_in_PA]

[QUOTE=btswass;8590690]
Agreed. Not to mention the transformer on the pole is completely covered in poison ivy and spreading since we can’t remove it.
We were going to dig the lines ourselves with our backhoe and a friend is an electrician and was going to do all the work. All we need the power company to do is remove the old poles.[/QUOTE]

Umm…if there’s a transformer on one of the poles in question, you need the power company involved. That’s their property and it’s also what’s stepping things down to provide your 240v/120v service from the higher line voltage. Your supply has to connect to a transformer somewhere and if you are going underground, that’s typically at the street. They also need to do the connection to the transformer for the new line that will be underground. Your electrician can’t do that piece.

[btswass]

Oh I know. We want the poles in the middle of our property to become one pole at the street with the transformer there and then underground to the barn and house from the street. Whats frustrating is since these poles are their property, they are responsible for their upkeep which they are not doing. The pole and transformer are completely covered in poison ivy and obviously I’m not going to mess around with trying to remove it.

[trubandloki]

[QUOTE=sk_pacer;8590988]
How odd for them to charge to remove their poles - here, any poles up to and including the transformer and meter pole belong to the power company and they replace/remove without charge; the same applies to telephone poles where there is above ground wire. I live in a ‘trouble’ spot - a place where the power line splits and goes west and north so they have been here many times to replace the poles at the turn points and every time was their cost.[/QUOTE]
This is not my experience when dealing with utility companies. Mind you my experience is with gas, not electric. (Disclaimer, my experience is limited to various places in four states (for work, not personal) so your mileage may vary considerably.)

Some utility companies move things or do service changes for no fee. Some utility companies move things or do service changes for a small set fee (which makes one wonder why bother charging a fee at all). Other utility companies charge what would be considered the going rate for changes and moving stuff.

The funny part is, even when the company is owned by the same bigger company it does not mean they have the same policy.

Yes, it is their stuff. But you wanting it moved is not their doing. It is working fine where it is. In this particular situation, they are not who want a riding ring there and they are not who think it is ugly.

I would call up the utility and talk to the person who gave you the price you like and ask why this other person is giving you a different price. You will either find out the guy who gave you the good price was totally off base or that the guy giving you the higher price is wrong.

[HungarianHippo]

trub is right, this is a completely elective move on your part, so unfortunately the reality is that the utility will not bear the cost. Don’t know how to resolve the cost discrepancy between the two people you are talking to. You could ask for an itemization of the estimators’ total, chances are their are line items that the field office isn’t including in their #.

If your pole is rotted at the base, leaning over, etc, you could make the safety argument, but not just that it’s unsafe to have power pole inside a paddock. As you said, the homeowner (I know it was not you, but the utility doesn’t distinguish) chose to put the paddock around the pole, not vice versa). But even if it’s a safety issue, it’s still your pole to maintain. We have a rural electric co-op, so we’re member/owners and there’s just a totally different vibe about service over profit. Anyway they came out and removed our old (badly leaning) pole, and installed new one for $350. I think the cost for our electrician to hook up all the wires to the new pole was $250?ish

As for the poison ivy, it’s a vine. Cut the vine off at the base of the pole which is perfectly safe and not time consuming, and it will die. No, it may not be your strict responsibility but which do you want more-- to be “Right” or the poison ivy gone?

[S1969]

Ok, you haven’t identified what “a ton” of money is for the removal, so that could change my position. (e.g. $500 wouldn’t be “a ton” for me, but $2500 might be…)

We have two poles in our pasture, and each had a sort of dangerous guy wire under which the horses could walk/run/stand. One morning one of my horses had his halter clipped to the wire - he must have been scratching his head on it and somehow clipped himself to it. (And bizarrely, he had a break away halter but chose to politely stand there until rescued.)

When we had new fencing installed, we had a few panels installed to sort of box out the poles/wires. (It’s not really a box, but a line of panels - which prevents the horses from getting to the pole, the wire, or underneath.)

The cost for that was about $250 added to our $10K fencing project, so it was minimal. And didn’t require any movement of utility poles.

So…a work-around might be easier/cheaper than removing. We don’t mow under, just around.

[Jim_in_PA]

If it were pasture, fencing around them might work for the OP, but she wants to put in an arena in the area where at least one of the poles is currently located…

[ReSomething]

The transformer changes the equation quite a bit.

We had three poles added for less than $500 each,and wire dropped and re routed, and messing with a transformer, IIRC would have cost almost the same just for the one pole. And it is true that they can quote you all kinds of prices that might be right or not. Myself I couldn’t figure how we got a three man crew and AND two trucks with a hydraulic drill rig out there for two and a half days plus the poles for the price we did, there was no profit margin in there at all, (but it was a co-op too.)

As mentioned cutting the vine works well, for poison ivy, regular ivy or poison oak, just cut completely around the tree trunk, and then repeat the process again a couple inches away above or below to ensure you’ve completed the job and there are no hidden continuous skinny little vines. It’s a little harsh to make some utility worker get covered with the stuff if you don’t want to either. For all you know they will spray some really unpleasant herbicide that will impact your horses.