Page Title: Aluminum Flagpoles

Things to consider when purchasing a home flagpole:

Cheaper poles, especially if they are white, are usually steel. These invariably start to rust. Sometimes rather quickly. You can never really stop it. Even if you took hours to grind down the rust spots to bare metal, primed them and then repainted the whole thing it would rust again. Our Aluminum poles cannot rust.

Many home poles come with a little vinyl ball for an ornament. Our poles come with a very impressive actual spun aluminum, gold anodized flagpole ball. It's the same ornament that comes on our poles costing $500 and up

Many home poles come with less than hefty hardware. Skinny rope, tiny cleat. Often the pulley is a simple steel (rustable) pulley that hangs on a steel through-bolt. Our pole is capped with a hefty cast aluminum truck assembly with pulley.

These poles come broken down and fit in a car. Put it this way, they have fit in every car we've loaded them into for folks here at our store.

They make great gifts for the holiday season, Father's day and Dad's birthday.

"Hey Al, Can I add a second flag to my pole?" Well, yes you can, BUT..... we always tell you what a pole is meant to take. ANY pole can be damaged if you overload it or if the weather conditions over tax it. When people ask me in my shop if their pole can break I tell them "absolutely". The wind is out there that can kill any flagpole. When will that wind come? I don't know. If truck axles can break and bridges carrying interstate highways can fall down, so can your pole and even your house for that matter. So, if you put the stress of a second flag on your pole, do it with your eyes wide open and take common sense precautions:

1) The most important thing you can do is keep your display appropriate for the conditions. Knowing your pole is overloaded, remove the flags during storms or windy conditions. Keep in mind that rain and ice make your flags heavier and therefore stress your pole more. In fact, removing even a single normal size flag is a good idea when bad storms are predicted.

2) Consider keeping the sizes small. If your pole is meant for a 3x5', consider making the second flag 2x3' or even both flags 2x3'

3) Consider sticking with nylon flags instead of the much heavier cotton or polyester. Those materials also soak up water, which increases their weight even more. Nylon is lightweight to begin with and sheds water quickly.

4) Interment flags that cover caskets have great sentimental value. But their large 5x 9.5' size make them way too large for these poles. The best way to display these flags is to get a triangle shaped display case and keep them as a memento. We have such cases in our catalog and on our web site: Display Cases Or, on special occasions, simply hang them vertically without a pole from a porch or against a wall.

All that having been said, many folks add a second flag. We're here to tell you what the pole is meant to have on it. If you are going to do it, you need to order an extra pair of snap hooks. The snaps that come with these poles are "Minuteman" snap hooks, and cost $1.75 each. So add and extra $3.50 to your order and tell us to include two Minuteman snap hooks. You might find it convenient to have extra snap hooks in reserve anyway in case you break or loose one.

The good news is that if a section does break, and out of all the poles we sell, this happens only about two or three times a year, you can purchase a replacement section. Try going back to a big chain store and buying only one piece of a flagpole! Jeepers creepers, I get people here in the shop act like I'm ripping them off when they ask me if the pole I'm selling them can break and I tell them "Yes, even a $5,000 car dealer type pole can break." One guy said just last week, "well, I've been looking at poles all over and no one else told me they can break." I told him, "well, no one else has been giving you honest information."

Can you name ANYTHING in life that can't break?

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Your new Lawn Flagpole is of anodized, all-aluminum construction, and will require no further care or maintenance after installation.

INSTALLATION: Prepare a hole in the ground about 12-18"" in diameter. The size of the hole will always need to depend on local soil conditions. Putting your pole up on a beach or in a desert full of sand? Better make a more giant hole. Make the hole about 4" deeper than the length of the ground sleeve. Some printed instructions call for making the hole even 8" deeper than the "setting tube" (ground sleeve.) Printed instructions sometimes call for filling the bottom with layers of gravel and sand to a depth of 6". I always preferred to use just gravel. Place PVC ground sleeve into hole, and work the bottom into the gravel/sand. Plumb and brace tube, then pour concrete into hole around tube to within 1/2" of top of the sleeve. Be careful to keep inside of tube clean and free of concrete. Re-plumb ground sleeve before the concrete sets, by temporarily inserting bottom section of pole and plumbing it instead of tube. Allow concrete to cure at least 24-48 hours before installing flagpole

This diagram shows the technique described above. I have personally always preferred to skip the sand and just use gravel. SNAP HOOKS: This diagram shows the snap hooks being tied on to the rope. I like this way better: How To Rig A Snap Hook

ASSEMBLY: Slide sections together, with the swedged ends extending upwards into the next section. The top section will always be the unswedged section. The second section from the bottom will always be a swedged section drilled for the cleat. The remaining sections complete the flagpole. Attach the cleat using the self-tapping screws supplied.

Screw the ball-stem tightly into the top of the truck. Thread the rope halyard over the pulley in the truck and loop each snap hook into place about mid-rope. Do not use knots. Fasten truck to pole, using a screw driver to tighten the set-screws. Make certain that pulley in truck is aligned over cleat.

If optional flash collar is supplied, slide collar on bottom of pole and temporarily tape it to the pole below the cleat. Slide bottom of assembled sections into PVC setting tube, aligning truck and cleat in the desired direction. Drop collar down upon foundation.  Adjust distance between flag snaps to fit the size flag being flown. Attach flag to flag snaps, tie-off halyard on cleat.

CAUTION: Extreme caution should be exercised when installing flagpoles near overhead power lines or in the vicinity of buried cables.

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