Friday, July 23, 2010

Site fabricated electrical trunking

What will be the problem if an electrical contractor fabricates the electrical trunking at the construction site? Why do I make an issue of this matter?

Picture 1 – Electrical trunking already installed at a new building under construction



=========  RELATED ARTICLES: Underfloor trunking below structural rebarsMATV trunking riser |   Conduit to trunking connections |  Cable ladder picturesElectrical conduits and trunking picturesElectrical panel under water pipes  | Electrical busduct installation pictures | Electric conduit installation pictures  | Electric trunking installation pictures  | Electric Panel Installation Pictures  | FR electric cable installation pictures  | Multi storey building electric closets  | Underfloor trunking pictures    | Electrical Services Color Codes  | Light switch installation pictures | Electrical installation pictures 
===========

Majority of Clients and Consultants that I know specifically state that all electrical trunking and the related accessories should be factory-manufactured and should preferably be obtained from the same manufacturer.

This means that all parts and pieces that make up an electrical trunking installation should purchased as finished products from factory.

Observe from Picture 1 above that one of the electrical trunking has been bent. That was to make room for something else that would be installed there later (it was not yet installed at the time this picture was taken. I am not yet very sure myself what that something is… which reminds me that I need to check it out soon).

The point here is that now and then electrical trunking need to bend and turn around things and other services and equipment along their path inside a building.

Because of that, we need the angle pieces of the trunking.

However, fabricating an angle piece from a straight trunking piece is the most economical alternative for many electrical subcontractors. That is why many of them usually try very hard to use this alternative rather than buying them ready-made from factory as specifically required by the Contract Specifications.

I was once faced with a contractor who just bulldozed their way and installed the site-fabricated trunking bends for eleven of the twenty floors of an office building.

The contractor thought he could play hardball and force me to accept and approve the installation.

Too bad he lost the battle in the end and he had to spend all the manpower and the extra “factory-manufactured” materials to redo the trunking installation.

The worst thing was that all the wiring had already been installed.

The three pictures below show a trunking bend being fabricated by the electrical worker at a construction site that I was involved in.

I rejected these works also and the rectification work should be done by the electrical subcontractor. The contractor knew I would not accept this sort of quality, but he thought he was smart I guess.

Why such a big fuss over this matter?

Because the site fabricated trunking accessories are almost always of very poor quality. The finished product usually produces very sharp edges all over the piece.

The sharp edges cut into the insulation of the wiring cables during the cable installation. When the insulation is damaged all over the place along the length of a cable, then it is no longer a good cable no matter how much you paid for it.

Wiring cables that have been damaged in this way not only become a maintenance headache to the operation people after just a few years, they are also dangerous and can cause deadly electrical accidents.

I say it again: THEY ARE DANGEROUS AND DEADLY.

Picture 2 – 45-degree trunking bend



Picture 3 – Sharp edges of the trunking bend



Picture 4 – Site workbench where the trunking “accessories” are “manufactured”



That is all the time I have for this blog today. Visit this post, Electrical installation pictures, to see more pictures of electrical installations.

There are other posts that I have sent a few months back about electrical trunking installation. You need to browse around this blog see them. I will put their direct links to this post in a few days for the readers’ convenience.

One last note: I wish to apologize to my regular visitors for being away this past few weeks. I know this blog has been getting regular visits from quite a number of readers.

The last few projects that I have been involved in have been taking too much of my time and energy, too much more than I would normally like to spend.

I also wish to thank the readers who have left messages. If you like these pictures, visit again.

I, however, will not be answering messages yet on this blog because I think this blog has not yet enough contents.

Not only that, once I start answering your messages, then I would feel very guilty when I cannot spare time on them.

Again thank you for visiting. I sincerely hope that pictures and other information that I put up here are useful to you all.

See you again soon.


Copyright http://electricalinstallationwiringpicture.blogspot.com Site-fabricated electrical trunking

No comments: