Light Pole Recall
Light Pole Recall
(OP)
http://w ww.statesm an.com/blo gs/content /shared-ge n/blogs/au stin/inves tigative/e ntries/200 9/09/16/an other_whit co_pole_to pples.html
Evidently there is a massive recall for light poles manufactured by Whitco LP and sold in the last ten years. Generally these are poles over 70 feet tall. While there have been some dramatic failures, no one has been hurt - yet. The company is out of business (no surprise) and the schools and towns have no recourse and face costly replacement/repair options.
Apparently the welds seem to be the issue. Do any of you have first hand experience with these poles or the actual cause of the failures? Some of the photos of dismantled poles show large horizontal cracks in the pole-to-base-plate weld.
I am trying to get a sense of whether the failure is due to the design itself or the weld craftsmanship. Some of the articles point to the fact that the pole material may hace come from Mexico, but it is not clear where the base plate fabrication took place.
Evidently there is a massive recall for light poles manufactured by Whitco LP and sold in the last ten years. Generally these are poles over 70 feet tall. While there have been some dramatic failures, no one has been hurt - yet. The company is out of business (no surprise) and the schools and towns have no recourse and face costly replacement/repair options.
Apparently the welds seem to be the issue. Do any of you have first hand experience with these poles or the actual cause of the failures? Some of the photos of dismantled poles show large horizontal cracks in the pole-to-base-plate weld.
I am trying to get a sense of whether the failure is due to the design itself or the weld craftsmanship. Some of the articles point to the fact that the pole material may hace come from Mexico, but it is not clear where the base plate fabrication took place.






RE: Light Pole Recall
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RE: Light Pole Recall
thread507-244356: What's Going On In Texas?
RE: Light Pole Recall
I am sure some googling could find this article.
RE: Light Pole Recall
For an industrious engineer there might be a lot of work available countrywide to inspect and remediate all these pole-to-base-plate connections. There are more than 2500 poles covered in this recall. There is a PDF published of suspect installations and that PDF is in excess of 100 pages long.
RE: Light Pole Recall
RE: Light Pole Recall
These schools and municipalities need someone to step up and help them out. It would be a pity if some school had to shell out $250,000 to replace all their lights just because they couldn't get a structural engineer to take on the work. Maybe that's the way it has to be...I don't know.