Close collaboration key to complex cable installation

Developed by Stoford and built by A&H Construction, the new £13 million headquarters for ERA Home Security in Wolverhampton combines warehousing, manufacturing facilities and office space to enable the 175-year old company to expand and diversify.

The purpose-built facility required a complex electrical and data installation requiring more than1000m of Unitrunk Cable ladder, EasyConnect cable basket, and UniKlip cable tray for the office areas. Indeed, the electrical installation was so large that, after agreeing a specification and working on the logistics of the project with Unitrunk, electrical contractor, CKW Contracts, worked with two local wholesalers, CEF Willenhall and ERF Wolverhampton, to supply the job.

High level

The 135,000ft² ERA unit includes both warehousing and manufacturing accommodation in the main building with a mezzanine level office suite and ground floor plant room divided from the main factory and warehouse floor.

The main building reaches 16m high at its apex and CKW created a framework of heavy duty 600, 450 and 300mm Unitrunk ladder, using risers to take cables to high level from the floor-mounted LV switch panel and installing 10mm rod to fix the ladder to the building’s purlins. This cable ladder infrastructure was not only used to create the high level route for LV cables but also provided the fixing structure for the cable basket, which was used for the warehouse’s data cabling.

The high level cable ladder provided a route for the primary distribution with the UniKlip cable tray being used to support the submains cabling for the office areas and the EasyConnect basket carrying the office areas’ twin and earth power cabling and comms cabling infrastructure within the office ceiling voids.

Suspended sub-frame

One of the key challenges of the installation was the need to provide an electrical network for the production area as the end user had stipulated that there was to be no electrical infrastructure rising from the floor in order to maximise space and layout flexibility.

To address this, Unitrunk worked with CKW to develop an alternative strategy with a suspended sub-frame of cable ladder under the main, high level installation.  The resulting sub-frame covers an area totalling approximately one third of the main building floorplate and hangs from the main cable ladder frame at around 2.5m above finished factory floor level. Two vertical lengths of cable ladder were used to provide anchor points between the main frame and the sub-frame, creating a sturdy installation, while suspension wires and gripple hooks were used to create a lightweight, lower cost solution for the remainder. 

This sub-frame not only provides the infrastructure for 250 amp busbar and 500 power outlets for the production area but will also be used to suspend compressed air pipework locally to the production processes.

Just like the high level frame, the sub frame also provides the fixing structure for the EasyConnect cable basket which provides the comms cabling infrastructure for the production area and feeds into four comms cabinets suspended 5m above the factory floor.

Close collaboration

The large scale and complex electrical fit out project was delivered to programme and within budget, with an installation lasting just four months, despite numerous changes to the scheme of works introduced while the site was live.

Jack Pullar, contracts manager at CKW, comments: “We have used Unitrunk’s Rapid Installation Systems (RIS) cable management products on numerous schemes and the speed and ease of use, along with Unitrunk’s design input really helped us deliver the project on time.

“The support of the two wholesalers involved was also a big help as it meant we were always working with a local supply chain that responded to our requirements quickly within the budget we’d agreed.”