[bcrl]

Anywhere that icing is possible during the winter, the static weight of the conductors is not generally the dominant design constraint; it is the diameter of the cable and the resulting additional load when icing occurs. Weight really only increases sag, which constrains attachment height, but wind gusts with increased wind resistance increase horizontal load. In areas that don't get ice, diameter drives wind loading, again making wind gusts the dominant failure mode for pole lines. This comes about as most poles and/or other support structures for overhead conductors have far greater strength vertically than horizontally.

I've spent far too much time over the last couple of years learning pole line design using QuickPole. The other factor that keeps cropping up in my designs are grading and/or positioning issues. Putting a pole even 50cm out of line with other poles can result in it failing loading due to the added horizontal load on the pole. On a recent design I had to add downguys and anchors to 2 poles because they were out of line, a mistake during installation that nobody paid attention to. The same thing happens when a pole that is too tall is installed in an existing pole line. The wires to adjacent poles add horizontal force to the top of the pole. On one design I had a pole failing because of that, but it was fine if all the conductors were lowered 5 feet.

All I wanted to do was put fibre optic cables on poles to serve my home...

Oh, rabbit holes....