So a while back a guy from the power company (but maybe it was one of the other utility cos., now that I think of it) walked into our backyard and knelt down at the base of our plain-old wooden telephone/electric/cable TV pole and used what was apparently a large drill with a star-shaped bit to drill two large black somethings into the telephone pole, roughly at a 45-degree downward angle. Then he left.
The exposed face head of the somethings is large, about the size of a quarter, and mostly filled by the star-shaped indentation for the bit.
They do not seem to serve any structural purpose, like holding together a split in the pole or something.
They are very low to the ground, certainly less than three feet, so I don’t think they are somehow related to faciliting climibing of the pole.
I thought maybe it somehow monitors the power in order to help isolate where a line has gone down, but I would think something like that would be at the top of the pole, you know, where the lines are. But maybe it can detect the presence/absence of the electric field at that distance or something?
I am guessing that they contain some kind of sensor (maybe to detect future rotting of the pole?) or some kind of transmitter/beacon, but that seems a little far-fetched.
The hole has to be made with a drill, you can’t just hammer the thing into solid wood. After that the plug can be hammered or screwed into the hole.
“Star Drill” is one of the search terms I used from the OP that brought me to the page. It was just a fluke that the OP mentioned the shape of the drill bit and they recommended you use it as well. Honestly, I’m not even entirely sure what a star drill is, that’s why I used it as part of my google search. I think I may have just searched for Utility Pole Star Drill or something simple like that.
I believe there are similar-looking screws that are installed to reinforce older wooden poles. In my prior neighborhood, I saw crews doing both deep fumigation and sealing the holes with these scotty things, and doing lonnngggg drilling to put in thick spiral steel reinforcement rod/screws.
This is most certainly for pest control as mentioned up thread. They drill the holes at an upward angle so water doesn’t go in, then place a vial of chemical (methyl isothiocyanate in my past experience) upside down in the hole.
The chemical leaks out slowly over time saturating the wood and preventing infestation.
source: I chain sawed a telephone pole up one time and got curious of all the empty vials in drilled holes I found.
The scotty replug picture looks very similar. Some “telephone pole fanboy” website (I only slightly exaggerate) I found indicated that they are used to plug holes drilled when testing the interior condition (re rotting) of the pole. So it is either that or insect control.
The “star bit” I mentioned is apparently properly called a “TORX bit.”
Telephone poles can last 70-80 years in some cases, though traffic accidents, woodboring insects, road widening schemes and hedgecutting machinery often account for them before that. The British Post Office always instructed us that under no circumstances must you climb a damaged pole.
