You’ve identified that your building’s electrical infrastructure has a problem, but you’re not sure where to start. You might be worried about the expense or wondering if you really need to act at all.
Step 1: Assess
The first step is to get a thorough idea of the nature of the problem.
This can be achieved by conducting a load monitoring assessment, to establish your building’s power capacity and usage patterns, and with a comprehensive building electrical audit.
Power budget (Load Monitoring):
Your building does not have unlimited power!
Establish your building’s allocation and present usage patterns. Avoid exceeding your capacity and costly upgrades to the main supply.
Inspection
Get a full picture of your electrical infrastructure. A comprehensive audit to consolidate all issues. This will set the foundation for a thorough remediation.
This is a relatively low-cost step that does not immediately commit you to any course of action, but that can form the basis of any remediation plan.
Step 2: Plan
Step 2 is to prepare a plan for an orderly electrical upgrade rollout and financing. After inspecting your premises, we will prepare a no-obligation quote based on our recommendations.
You can also enlist the help of a third-party consultant to prepare a formal scope of work. This can be used to ensure suppliers are quoting on the same work specifications with consistent quality of materials. This ensures a fair process and can also help you discriminate between quotes.
You can also enlist a third-party engineer to prepare a scope of work for a consistent competitive tender.
Where appropriate, we can tailor costs to suit your budget, or schedule the upgrade over several years to soften the financial burden while you meet your duty of care in an orderly, phased manner.
Step 3: Implement
Strata title and company title multi-residential buildings have a numerous stakeholders, from committees to residents, members and managing agents. AFE provides guidance and education through every step of the process to engage all stakeholders and encourage buy-in from all parties.
In general, implementation has three broad phases:
Phase 1: Any necessary upgrades to the main supply and main switchboard.
Phase 2: Rewiring from the main switchboard to apartments as well as any other common area remediation.
Typically, this will involve relocating the distribution board (DB) for each apartment from the MSB to a convenient, compliant, and discreet location within each apartment. We will find the most effective path for the new wiring, either by utilising the existing pathways or by establishing new ones.
Also, common area facilities (hallway lights, laundry power, etc).
Phase 3: Rewiring inside apartments (may or may not be addressed as a building cost)
A full building audit will give you a clear picture of the state of the electrical infrastructure inside the apartments. Often piecemeal upgrades have taken place, but with inconsistent certification.
A centrally orchestrated phase 3 upgrade will give you confidence that your entire building is safe and up to compliance, though some committees choose to devolve this responsibility to individual lot owners.
AFE provides guidance and education through every step of the process to engage all stakeholders and encourage buy-in from all parties.
These phases may be rolled out sequentially, out of order, or simultaneously depending on the nature of the project.
Peace of mind
If an upgrade is required, view it as a once-in-a-generation job that, when done properly, will pay dividends for decades to come. It is an opportunity to bring your home or investment into the modern age, improving its value, safety, and amenity.
Contact us today for a free, no-obligations site consultation or to book an inspection.
Comments