Aerial construction
Pole line construction, strand and lashing, overhead fiber placement, and line transfers, with our own bucket trucks and aerial crews.
What aerial construction covers on a utility build
Aerial construction is everything a network needs above ground: setting and framing poles, running and tensioning strand, lashing cable to it, placing overhead fiber, and transferring existing lines when a pole is replaced or a route changes.
Most builds are not purely underground or purely aerial. A route drops underground at a river crossing and comes back up on the other side. A city replaces a pole line and every attached carrier has to transfer. A rural build runs aerial where the ground is rock and underground where it is not. The awkward part is almost always the seam between the two.
We run our own bucket trucks and aerial crews, which means the overhead scope and the underground scope on the same build stay on one schedule and one contract instead of two contractors negotiating a handoff.
Where the overhead and underground scopes meet
Carriers and municipalities usually discover the value of a single contractor at the transition points. A bore comes up at a riser, a strand terminates at a pole the underground crew has to trench past, a make-ready pole cannot be climbed until an attacher moves. Those are schedule risks, not technical ones, and they are solved by having one company responsible for both sides.
We take aerial as standalone scope and as part of a full build package alongside boring, plowing, blowing, and excavation.
What aerial scope covers
Pole line and overhead placement work, run by crews with their own lift equipment.
Pole line construction
Poles set, framed, and guyed for new line, with the anchoring and clearances the route and the jurisdiction require.
Strand and lashing
Messenger strand run and tensioned, cable lashed to it, and the hardware installed to spec rather than to whatever is on the truck.
Overhead fiber placement
Aerial fiber placed on new or existing strand, with slack storage placed where the splice plan needs it.
Line transfers
Existing attachments transferred to replacement poles, coordinated with the pole owner and the other attachers on the route.
Make-ready support
Make-ready work on routes where existing attachments have to move before new cable can be placed.
Underground transitions
Risers and transition points built by the same company that drilled the bore coming up to them.
Why aerial and underground belong on one contract
The expensive delays on a mixed build almost always happen at the seam between the two.
- Our own bucket trucks and aerial crews, not a rented lift and a subcontractor.
- Aerial and underground crews scheduled against the same build plan.
- Transitions, risers, and pole-to-bore handoffs owned by one contractor.
- Crews that mobilize across Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Wisconsin.
- Part of an 80-person family of companies, so crew size scales with the build.
FAQ
Aerial construction questions
Still have a question? Call us at (651) 529-1527 and we'll walk you through it.
Yes. Our aerial crews work off our own equipment, which is what lets us hold a date on the overhead scope of a build instead of scheduling around a rental yard or a subcontractor's backlog.
That is the normal shape of our work. Boring, plowing, blowing, excavation, and aerial all sit under one contract, which matters most at the transition points where a route goes from underground to overhead and back.
Yes, coordinated with the pole owner and the other attachers on the route. Transfers are as much a scheduling and communication job as a construction one, and treating them that way is what keeps a pole replacement from stalling.
Request a bid
Send us the scope.
Plans, a route, a permit set, or a description of the crossing. We will come back with questions before we come back with a number, because a bid built on assumptions helps nobody.
- info@millermn.com
- Building across MN, ND, SD, IA, WI
- Boring, plowing, blowing, excavation, waterline, and aerial
Request a bid
Tell us about the project and an estimator will follow up.