Tech Products, Inc. has been working with utilities since 1948 to find better ways to mark distribution poles so it can be easily identified in all weather conditions. Our Everlast™ 1” pole tags are currently being used by Con Edison to mark all of their above ground distribution poles in the four boroughs of New York City. Manhattan, the most famous borough uses our Everlast™ cable tags for their underground distribution system. New York has a mixture of environmental factors that make many of today’s pole tags deteriorate rapidly. They decided on Everlast™ because the tags have been proven to last in some of the world’s harshest environments including, Tucson Electric’s desert conditions, The Alaskan Pipeline’s tundra and recently American Samoa’s mixture of high humidity and strong UV radiation.
@ConEdison ’s above ground distribution system gets battered by ice and snow in the winter, heat and humidity in the summer and the occasional nor’easter, blizzard or hurricane. In all these conditions, the noble lineman has to brave the elements to get the cities lights back. The tags that identify the poles have to be easy to read to speed response time and save the lineman from pointless trips out of a bucket truck to find important assets.
The typical environmental factors that destroy pole markers and substation signs are UV radiation, salt spray, water, cold/hot cycles and vandalism. New York has all of the conditions that make a typical pole tag not last longer than 10 years before becoming ineffective. This includes year round salt water spray from its surrounding bays, rivers and ocean. It has an average amount of UV radiation for the northeast that fades and deteriorates inks and paints. Graffiti vandalism and aluminum scrap stealing. All these conditions make it very important that the identification system is of the highest quality and been field tested for many years. Everlast™ pole tags have proven to be readable in the worst environments for over 40 years. Using a unique two-step injection molded process; Everlast™ doesn’t have any inks or paints. Our process uses only a UV stable polyolefin through out so UV radiation doesn’t fade the characters keeping a very strong contrast from the characters to the background. It can easily be cleaned with graffiti solvent in the field without destroying the integrity of the pole tag. Salt spray, acid rain even mosquito pesticides don’t affect the Everlast™ pole tag because the polyolefin used to make our tag is chemical inert.
Our tags are great in many other conditions including, very cold environments. It is scratch proof because the copy is molded throughout the tag; this makes it great for high wind areas that carry dust, dirt or ice. This can make the tags great for a transmission system like we do for ITC in Michigan or EPCOR in Alberta. The tags also handle very fast temperature changes as in the Arizona desert. Tucson Electric uses our 3” tall characters to mark their switches in substations and the 10” x 14” Substation signs all made in the Everlast™ style. These tags are subjected to 40 – 60 degree temperature changes within a day plus very strong UV radiation. It is the perfect application for a long lasting product like Everlast™.
After many years of manufacturing different products to be used on utility poles, transmission towers and substations, @TechProductsInc is very happy to have made a truly great product that fits the utility industries needs perfectly. See us at http://www.TechProducts.com
Tech Products, Inc. 