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I'm trying to get fiber optic service through Hawaiian Telecom and they told me I need one pole installed. They say I need a 4" diameter pipe which I think it's totally overkill for a fiber optic cable. They said it has to be a 4" pipe buried 5' deep to meet PUC specifications. They said they could hook the cable up to something smaller but if anything ever happened to the cable they would not fix it, ever. So one tree branch falls in a storm and bye bye internet. If I go with a 4" pole buried 5' deep has anyone done that? How heavy is a 4" pipe that is 15 or 20 feet long? How do you get it propped up in the hole so it can be set in concrete? If I pay someone to do it I think they will gouge me, for sure. Anyone paid to have this done? Recommendations?
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Questions:
What height above the buried portion do they require?
Is that 4"id or 4"od?
Is schedule 40 pipe acceptable?
4"id sched40 [DN100] weighs almost 11#/ft.
3-1/2"id [4"od] sched40 weighs almost 9-1/4#/ft.
Keep in mind that a contractor has a lot more mandatory expenses than you will have if you do it yourself.
Usually what seems to be gouging, is nothing more than your having to pay the contractor's cost of doing business as well as the cost of materials, labor and a reasonable profit.
I am a tight-a$$.
I normally balk at paying anyone to do something I can do myself.
EDIT:
Another thing you'll need to consider: To get your 5' burial, will you need to jackhammer 5' into lava rock to do so?
If cost is a real limiting factor to putting in the pole, you may have no choice other than accepting full responsibility for "your" pole's health in the future.
But, in doing so you can probably get by with a much cheaper installation.
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Was a Democrat until gun control became a knee jerk, then a Republican until the crazies took over, back to being a nonpartisan again.
This time, I can no longer participate in the primary.
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They have 20 footers at HPM last I went. You can prop the thing up with a couple braces, but if there is any chance that you could hit a power line while your setting it Have someone do it for you
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Propping it up is the least of your worries. Digging a 5' deep hole most places in Puna is....well....you're probably not going to do it with a shovel or a standard post hole digger.
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It's been some years, but there is (or was) a guy named Carl, he has a bore rig that can drill perfect holes in lava, and he can throw a chain around the boom to raise the pipe. Try ask the nice ladies at Allied Equipment Rental in Shipman, they knew where to find him last time I went looking.
Charged me $150. Totally worth it. Solid pahoehoe is far stronger (and cheaper) than any concrete I could pour to backfill a bigger hole.
See the guys at Alpha Electric for the hook on the top, they have a clamp-on assembly, this avoids drilling holes in the pipe. Breaking the galvanization is just asking for rust.
Pole needs to be 14' tall if the line is crossing a road or driveway. A 20' pipe with 5' in the ground leaves you 15', so this requirement is easily met. Not sure they will allow shorter poles in other instances.
Schedule 40 should be more than enough for fiber.
Thread a cap on the exposed end. This should be obvious... but...
They want the pole to be within 100' of the line. Longer distances might be allowed with fiber (less loading) but you'd have to ask them.
Copper terminus used to require two ground rods. Probably unnecessary for fiber. Again, ask.
Past the pole, if your house is close/tall enough, they'll hang it on your house. They will also pull it through conduit. If your conduit has no string, their fish tape is 300', include some access pulls if the conduit run is longer than that. Use at least 1-1/4" conduit. It doesn't have to be buried.
Side note: HPM has a selection of access pulls for 1-1/4" and 1-1/2" PVC conduit. I was not able to find these elsewhere. Similarly, the midspan access pull should be a "C-body", but nobody carries these on-island. Use a T-body and glue some kind of plug on the side port. Lowe's has gray PVC caps, or find something in the plumbing section (other than UV resistance, gray/white PVC are compatible for size and glue).
Telcom installers are "pre-blessed" by NEC section 70 (low voltage communications) and the HCC. No permits required.
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They want a nominal 4" schedule 40 pipe. They won't accept less. I should know. I tried 2 1/2" pipe and the installers turned up their nose at it. This despite my asking the Hawaiian Telcom people over the phone. The people in the office couldn't tell me the lowdown so I had to remove the smaller pipes and install the 4" pipes.
Never mind about the 5' embedment. They had no way of confirming that and didn't even ask. My place is all rock. I dug down as deep as I could with my rotary hammer, about 18", and cast concrete around the base of the pole. The Hawaiian Telcom installers might bother you about how deep if you had soil but probably won't say boo if they know it's lava land. In lava, those pipes ain't goin' nowhere.
The 4" schedule 40 pipe comes in 21' lengths which weigh something like 275 lbs and cost something like $400 each. I used the two 2 1/2" pipes and a 20' ladder to make a sort of tripod that I could climb then used a come-along to raise the 4" pipes enough to get them started. I had already installed hooks at the top, one on each side, and tied 3 ropes to these hooks so I could guy the pipes up vertical as I removed the tripod. I used ratchet straps at the ends of the 3 ropes, secured to trees and a nearby fence to tighten the ropes and fine tune the verticalness (verticality? verticalitude?) of the poles.
The fiber optic cable is secured to the poles with chinese finger grippy things that grab the cable and have a wire loop that goes over the hooks at the top of each pole. The cable approaches the pole on one side (first hook) and leaves on the other side (second hook) with a loop of slack hanging down about 18" in between. The installers gave me a couple of the hooks they use on the first visit as a sort of consolation prize. I bought a couple more S-hooks of about 3/16" dia stock that I crimped closed on one end and twisted the other end 90 degrees so that it would stick out from the pole in general hook-like fashion when the crimped end had a bolt through it bolting it to the pipe. I used a single 1/4" dia bolt about 6" long straight through the top of the pipe to secure both hooks, far enough down from the end to allow the end cap to be installed. I got the pipes at Hilo Steel. They had sheet metal caps that press-fit on that cost $25 each. Central Supply had Sch 40 threaded caps at the affordable price of $150 or so so I went with Hilo Steel.
There was no need for a ground rod for FO cable.
