I didn't have extensions on my poles but the poles sagged terribly anyway so I went and bought conduit pipes the length I needed and put them over the original poles and screwed them in. Worked like a charm. Reason why I didn't replace them with the conduit is because of the ends that connected to the original poles. When I sold the system, they asked for the conduit poles as they liked the idea. Also replaced the plastic rails with a metal railing I found at Home Depot I think back then.