Let me start this off by saying, I looked at flag poles for a month before I decided to buy. I looked at the big warehouse stores, home improvement chains, and I even considered building my own from materials from the local metal store. I live in Eastern New Mexico, and our standard day breeze is anywhere from nothing to 25 mph, gust reaching upwards of 70mph. After reading thousands of reviews and looking at pictures and debating on a single section, or a multi-section pole, or breaking down and figuring out how to reinforce a "cheap sectional pole" that you can get from any of the big chain stores or online mass retailer. Those range from 99 bucks to a couple hundred. Most of the pictures showed a great looking pole, but they have a major flaw, sidewall thickness. They are good for places that get the occasional light gust, but they wouldn’t stand a chance against NM wind. After deciding on the sectional commercial grade 20ft pole, I was still skeptical about it until it showed up.
Packing was great, couple of small holes in the box but they were nothing to worry about. After flying through the instructions that are very well laid out, I inspected the sections. Thick and sturdy, very well tapered to fit together nicely. I used a 12” concrete for cut at 2’3”, 3 ½“s of pea gravel in the bottom 2 layers of blue painters tape on the bottom of the sleeve, and 160lbs of concrete mix. Leveling the sleeve while the concrete was going in. The sand in the sleeve holds the base sturdy. Standard home maintenance skills will suffice for the install. The only tip I can give to go with the instructions is to use 2 blue painters tape to put on the slip joint t snug up the fit just a little. My neighbors are all envious and have asked where I got it. Believe me I told them. And any other flag pole that I purchase in the future will come from Federal. 4x6 and 3x4 1/2 flags flying.