Modular buildings bring efficiency but cannot be taken for granted without precise project management. SES Engineering Services electrical engineer, Emily Marner, explains how she tackled that challenge on her very first project as lead.
Emily Marner
Given that the £6.5m M&E contract on a student accommodation new build for the University of Hull was my very first as lead electrical engineer, it seemed entirely appropriate that I should have to go back to school.
I have recently become an ambassador for the MEP industry visiting schools and colleges to encourage students to consider the construction industry as a career. So working on the Courtyard new build, which will house 560 students across nine blocks and raise the bar in the standard of student accommodation, was a scheme really close to my heart.
Emotions soon took a back seat, though, when I was faced with the very real challenge of delivering this project electrically as well as being the main contact between the main contractor, Sewell Construction, our client and SES.
Once the design was complete and signed off, I set about procuring the specialist subcontractors and main items of electrical equipment within set budgets, and presenting the technical proposals to the client for sign-off.
Procurement was a task on its own, but I had to manage the installation over nine blocks, all working at once, whilst managing queries from the main contractor.
Each block contained four one-bedroom penthouse apartments, with larger studio apartments in clusters of four, and most of the accommodation was set out over eight-bed clusters around shared kitchen facilities and live/learn spaces.
So 560 bedrooms in total. And while the benefits of modular buildings are obvious, if our modular work was not entirely and mathematically correct, we would have had precisely 560 problems – which would need unique manual electrical engineering.
Each block contained four one-bedroom penthouse apartments, with larger studio apartments in clusters of four
To ensure the critical consistency across this high volume, I worked with our Prism team at SES’s dedicated offsite manufacturing facility in Huntington, York, to engineer a solution to prefabricate around 560 lengths of dado of five set sizes.
The dado was wired, tested and fit to all socket fronts – testing was made easy without having to remove the entire lid.
These dado rails had to be millimetre perfect to fit, and with the design of the furniture continuing to change, it was a real challenge.
Against the clock, in the end, by prefabricating this solution we saved a significant amount on the electrical installation and thousands of hours on site. Without Prism, the project would have taken three times as long to complete.
Offsite prefabrication was the key. We developed risers for each building which consisted of electrical containment, distribution boards, busbar and pipework for the hot and cold services.
In total, nine plant skids were developed offsite, one for each block; including boilers, pumps, and expansions vessels, to provide hot water and heating. Likewise, all the modules for the pipework and electrical containment were made offsite they could then be installed in each block on every level along the corridors.
When I look back at my first project as lead, I have a huge sense of achievement. The only shame is that a prefabricated future means an electrical engineer like me has fewer lights to wire up!
SES is a Wates company.
