Flagpole installation acrossMassachusetts

Flagpoles in Massachusetts

Colonial street frontage, college and hospital campuses, and open Atlantic water from Buzzards Bay out to Nantucket. One quote covers the pole, the footing that has to reach below a 48-inch frost line, the flag and the labour.

Wind here. Massachusetts is under 200 miles from the New York line to Provincetown, and the wind figure climbs the whole way east. The northern Berkshires — Williamstown, North Adams, Pittsfield — sit at about 110 mph, the lowest figures in the state. Springfield, Worcester and Lowell are at 115, Boston, Cambridge and Quincy at 120, Scituate, Marshfield and Plymouth at 125. New Bedford and Wareham are 130, Cape Cod much the same, and it tops out around 135 on Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. Massachusetts does not leave any of that to a map: the state code sets a wind speed and a ground snow load for every city and town by name, and we work from the figure listed for yours. Nothing in the state reaches 150 mph, which is where Eder's published flag-flying ratings stop. So inland the pole is settled by ice, ground and historic review rather than by the wind number, and it is only from the South Shore outward that wind takes the decision back.

• The Berkshires and the Pioneer Valley — About 110 mph at Williamstown and North Adams, 115 mph by Springfield and Northampton. The lowest wind figures in Massachusetts. The snow does not come down with them, though — Williamstown is listed at 50 psf on the ground and North Adams at 60 — so this is where the money goes into hardware and halyard rather than wall.
• Worcester County and the Merrimack Valley — Around 115 mph through Worcester, Fitchburg and Lowell. A standard wall carries most of this ground. Snow is the heavy number instead: Fitchburg is listed at 60 psf, the deepest in the state. Lowell also reviews exterior work downtown before any other permit is issued, and that time is worth building into the programme.
• Greater Boston and the South Shore — 120 mph across Boston, Cambridge and Quincy, and 125 by Scituate, Marshfield and Plymouth. A heavier wall begins to earn its place here, and anything looking out at the harbour or the open bay takes an anodized finish with it for the salt.
• Buzzards Bay, the Cape and the islands — 130 mph at New Bedford and Hyannis, and about 135 on Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket. The hardest figures in the state, with salt on every side of them: heavy wall or Hurricane series, anodized finish, stainless fittings, and a hole dug wide for sand rather than deep for clay.

Flying the Massachusetts 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 Massachusetts flag →