Flagpole installation acrossCalifornia

Flagpoles in California

The wind figure is the same everywhere in California, and it decides very little. What decides a job here is the ground it stands on and the review it has to pass.

Wind here. Eder's wind map reads 85 mph, and it does not move. From Crescent City to El Centro the mapped figure is the same, so in California the shaft is almost never the question. Three other things are. Seismic first: a pole is light and flexible and seldom the critical piece in an earthquake, but the footing, the anchor bolts and the steel around them are, and what they are designed against is far heavier in Oakland or Los Angeles than in Sacramento or Fresno. Then the ground, which runs from bay mud to cemented hardpan to decomposed granite inside a few hours' drive. Then the queue: Title 24 and the local plan check take their time, a public school or a community college goes to the Division of the State Architect rather than to the city, and a hospital goes to HCAI. The map is honest about its own limits too, marking special wind regions through the Sierra and the mountain passes and leaving the figure there to the local jurisdiction.

• The Bay Area and the northern coast — Eder's 85 mph, the same as the rest of the state. Made ground is what costs money: fill and bay mud round the shoreline take a designed footing with steel in it rather than an augered hole. Salt off the bay and the Gate never lets up, so plated fittings are a false economy on the shoreline.
• Los Angeles and the southern coast — The same 85 mph, sitting over the heaviest ground shaking in the state. Wall thickness is not the argument here. Everything below the flange is, and that is where the money and the plan check both go.
• The Central Valley — 85 mph again, with the mildest seismic design in California under it. The price is set underfoot instead. Cemented hardpan on the east side of the valley and expansive clay on the basin floor mean the hole often costs more than the shaft.
• The Inland Empire, the passes and the deserts — 85 mph on Eder's map, which says nothing about a Santa Ana. Open lots out past Riverside and San Bernardino have nothing upwind and get sized for open ground. Further east the map hands the passes to the local jurisdiction as a special wind region, and dry wind with grit in it finishes a plated fitting.

Flying the California flag? We sell it, sewn to the state's own design specification and sized to sit under the national flag on your pole. See the California flag →

Need taller than 80 ft? We supply steel flagpoles from 100 to 150 ft, made in the USA, for car dealerships, truck stops and other big sites across California. 100–150 ft flagpoles in California →