Flagpole installation acrossWisconsin

Flagpoles in Wisconsin

Eder makes its flags and poles at Oak Creek, immediately south of Milwaukee, so a Wisconsin pole has a short journey to make. The pole, the concrete it stands in, the flag and the labour come back to you as one number.

Wind here. Wisconsin hardly moves on the wind map. The current ASCE 7 figure is about 105 mph across the whole populated south and east, from the Illinois line through Milwaukee and Madison and up the Fox Valley to Green Bay, and the highest in the state, about 110 mph, sits away from all of that in the southwest corner along the Mississippi at Prairie du Chien and Platteville. Wisconsin's commercial code still points at an older edition of that standard, which draws the state flat at 115 mph, so the higher figure is usually the one on a Wisconsin permit set. Either way the number is mild, and it is not what decides a pole here. Winter is. Freezing rain lands on the flag and on the fittings at the top of the shaft at once, the footing has to reach below the frost line before it does anything structural, and any site facing Lake Michigan or the bay of Green Bay is sized as open ground however sheltered the street behind it looks.

• The Lake Michigan shore — From the Illinois line up through Racine, Milwaukee and Sheboygan to the Door Peninsula. The mapped figure is mild, about 105 mph, and the exposure is not: there is nothing upwind of those sites but open water. Wall thickness follows the ground here rather than the map.
• Madison and the southern counties — The same mapped figure without the open water in front of it, which makes these the straightforward jobs in the state. What costs money is the hole rather than the shaft: the footing goes below a frost line that runs about four feet down here and deeper as you head north.
• The Fox Valley and the bay of Green Bay — Oshkosh, Appleton and Green Bay all read the same on the map. Inland sites in the valley are genuinely sheltered. Anything on the bay or on the Lake Winnebago shore is not, and takes a heavier shaft for it.
• The Driftless southwest and the north — The southwest corner along the Mississippi carries the highest mapped figures in the state, about 110 mph. The north carries the most ice. Stainless fittings and a rope run inside the pole behind a locking door are the difference between a flag you can lower in February and one you leave up.

Flying the Wisconsin 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 Wisconsin flag →