Flagpole installation acrossRhode Island

Flagpoles in Rhode Island

No address in Rhode Island is far from salt water, and it shows in what we sell here: shafts sized for wind off the bay, and finishes that survive the salt in it.

Wind here. Rhode Island is small enough that Eder's wind map covers it in two bands across 37 miles of width and 48 of length: 120 mph through Providence, Pawtucket, Cranston and Warwick, and no higher in the Burrillville and Woonsocket corner; 130 mph on Aquidneck Island and along the south shore; and 130 or above at the two far corners, Westerly and Block Island, which we read off the chart for the address. So the figure is not what decides the pole here. The water is. NOAA counts 384 miles of tidal shoreline inside a state this size, which means a great many addresses look straight out over open water whatever their town carries, and that is the first thing we ask about.

• The northwest corner — 120 mph or below on Eder's chart through Burrillville, Glocester, North Smithfield and Woonsocket, the mildest numbers in Rhode Island and the highest, stoniest ground in it. The shaft is the cheap part up here. The hole is not, because glacial till with rock in it can stop an auger short of the depth the footing needs.
• Providence, the Blackstone valley and the upper bay — 120 mph on Eder's map from Pawtucket down through Providence and Cranston to Warwick and Barrington. The number is the easy part. Tight sites, the made ground under the old downtowns and the mill yards, and the channelling between buildings are what add to the job.
• Aquidneck Island and the south shore — 130 mph on Eder's chart at Newport, Middletown, Narragansett, South Kingstown and Charlestown. Within a mile of the water the code also treats the ground as a wind-borne debris region, allowing for what the wind picks up as well as what it pushes over. On that strip we start with heavy wall or Hurricane series, an anodized finish and stainless hardware.
• Westerly and Block Island — 130 mph or above on Eder's chart in both, and they are as far apart as this state gets: Westerly on the Connecticut line, New Shoreham out in the Atlantic. These are the most exposed corners of the state, so Hurricane series and nothing lighter. Block Island is a logistics job on top of that: the pole, the base and every fitting cross on the Point Judith ferry, so the order has to be right the first time. The code even allows New Shoreham a shallower footing than the mainland, 2 ft 6 in against 3 ft 4 in.

Flying the Rhode Island 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 Rhode Island 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 Rhode Island. 100–150 ft flagpoles in Rhode Island →