Wood Utility Poles

Wood utility poles are a historic and still practical choice for utility operators today. When you are contemplating looking for wood untility poles for sale, you should consider their many advantages and benefits. Wood has been called the optimal material for utility poles.

Advantages to Wood Utility Poles

There are a variety of reasons why wood makes such a good source material for utility poles. These start with its renewability. Besides being resilient, wood resists spalling, crumbling, corrosion, and oxidation. A safety feature benefit is that wood provides lower electricity conductivity.

It is true that there is one failing of wood when considered commercially. This is that wood proves to be biodegradable. You can get around this by preserving the wood. It can be economically, efficiently, and simply protected against the enemies that threaten to weaken the wood. These are found in nature in the form of insects and fungi attacks.

Southern Yellow Pine Poles

Many people are not aware of the fact that the majority of utility poles created in North America today come from Southern Yellow Pine trees. These have the advantage of being fast growing. They are also the strongest of the softwoods in relationship to their weight.

With their straight and tall growth, the trees are ideally shaped for use as utility poles. They have another advantage of being among the woods that are simplest to treat. Preservative treatments for this wood includes CCA, PENTA, and CCA-ET.

CCA Wood Treatment

Chromated Copper Arsenate ensures great durability for wood fiber poles. It means that termites and fungi find the wood useless. This causes the poles’ practical lifespans to be many times longer than those poles that are left untreated. The CCA treated poles become highly resistant to leaching. They are environmentally friendly and completely odor free as well.

The preservative in CCA does not easily corrode or conduct electricity either. Fortunately the treatment does not change the important physical characteristics of the wood like its bending strength. This is what makes wood such a superior choice for utility poles in the first place.

You can see that wood utility poles are the best choices available today. They are easy to grow and replace. The poles provide low conductivity and are biodegradable. Their one weakness of natural enemies can be easily countered by treating them with a preservative such as CCA.