Electrical Contractors Beef Up Engineering

Whether it is because they want projects completed more quickly or they want to cut energy costs, more owners are calling on electrical contractors to get involved early during project design, and some contractors like it that way.

PayneCrest Electric is one contractor that is doing a lot more electrical engineering as a basic part of its business. In eight years, PayneCrest’s total business grew 30 percent, but the engineering staff grew eight-fold, from two engineers to 16, “and we like it that way,” aid David Payne, president of PayneCrest Electric. “We get to control our own destiny and we get to make the drawings the way we like them,” he said.

PayneCrest devoted seven engineers to the Lumiere Hotel and Casino project in downtown St. Louis. The company set up a 1,300-square-foot Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) center on-site and churned out more than 1,500 drawings to provide detailed coordination and accelerate the installation of complex, ever changing, electrical systems, which, in addition to basic electrical wiring, emergency back-up power, and fire alarm systems, also included data, surveillance and advanced video advertising systems.

In preparation for its 35-day overhaul of the RT body shop at Chrysler’s Fenton Plant to prepare it to make new minivan models, PayneCrest sent four engineers and field supervisors to Detroit for six weeks to the plant where the tool cells were manufactured, assembled and tested.  The PayneCrest team recorded digital images of every linear foot of the new cells – inside and out, assisted in coding assembly and created an assembly package for each cell to ensure accurate assembly in Fenton. The company also performed pre-job engineering and planning to optimize demolition and installation efficiency. Because of the around-the-clock construction schedule involving other trades and contractors, power shutdowns were extremely complex and had to be precisely sequenced to accommodate all work.  The schedule changed almost hourly, requiring PayneCrest to constantly redirect resources not only for demolition and installation but to coordinate temporary power and lighting to keep the project moving.

At the Pfizer CV SUMP Generator and Power Distribution project in Chesterfield, MO, intense pre-planning also was necessary to comply with Pfizer’s insistence on minimizing power outages coordinating them closely with other work to avoid disrupting on-going pharmaceutical research and development.

“We believe in doing our engineering on the site,” Payne said. “When we do that, we get to become the nerve center of the job and other trades huddle around our on-site engineering center to solve conflicts. Instead of having someone in Granite City and someone in South County and someone in Olivette trying to figure out how to get something built, we can walk out on the job and solve it,” he said.

Early Involvement for Faster Construction

In Payne’s view, owners increasingly are embracing design/build in order move faster and pay less for engineering. “Even if they are calling it design assist or they are saying they want you to bid on 70 percent complete drawings, it is really design/build,” he said, and that is a trend that he sees growing. “Look at InBev,” he said. “They’ve greatly reduced Anheuser-Busch’s engineering staff. I would bet that because of those cuts they are going to have to shift to design/build,” he said.

Dan Schaeffer, president of Schaeffer Electric Co., estimated that design/build projects have grown to represent half of his business, and their still growing, even though Schaeffer is not going out on the market as a design/build contractor, he said. Schaeffer Electric is under contract to BJC HealthCare, for example, to provide design/build services to power and install lighting and distribution equipment on four floors of the new Meridian development, located at Hanley Road and Highway 40 in Brentwood, MO. 

Schaeffer said the chief benefits of design/build are:

• Faster project completion.  Because building owners are in direct communications with the electrical contractor, the design/build process offers a more streamlined approach to resolving design questions and issues.
 
• Cost savings.  The design/build method passes a “shell” design of a building to electrical contractors who then use their expertise to implement the most energy and cost saving electrical design.  It’s a savings that is passed directly to the owner because the services are handled directly between the two parties.

• Owner options and better end results.  The design/build process lends itself to greater communication between the owner and electrical contractor.  In talks, both parties can discuss different options to best meet the needs of the owner – including energy efficient solutions.

Schaeffer emphasized that effective design means bringing the electrical contractor in early to work with the architect and engineers, not in place of them. “They will design around daylighting or task lighting, for example, and then we might say we can give them the same illumination (from lamps) for less or we can cut the cost of operating that system of illumination. If they are working with daylight harvesting, we can suggest the most effective controls for dimming artificial lighting on a bright day or brightening it on a dark day,” he said.

“It is important to get us involved early to avoid conflicts, especially with the HVAC,” Schaeffer said. “We need to know the electrical loads they will furnish so that we can coordinate and design the electrical system correctly. We have to get power to their system – it makes a big difference whether it is a big chiller or 10 rooftop units. And what might be more economical to install from the HVAC end, might be more expensive from the electrical end, so we can give the owner different options.”

Schaeffer’s goal is to participate on “win/win teams” he said. “When the owner picks a compatible team, it turns out a smooth project,” he said.

Early Involvement for a “Greener” Project

Charles Pavalec, president of Bell Electrical Contractors, said owners interested in sustainability and not just speed definitely would get a better project if they involve the electrical contractor early on. “In the LEED certification process there is a myriad of points for the different ratings, but in many cases there are tradeoffs between electrical, mechanical or plumbing. For example, you can get points for saving energy a certain amount above an ASHRAE standard or for the number of outside air changes, but those might be in conflict and you have to determine which you want. Having all of the professionals at the table in the beginning gives you a better idea of the costs associated with one path or another,” he said.

Pavalec knows whereof he speaks. Bell Electrical Contractors has been the electrical contractor on a number of “green” projects in the St. Louis area, including Washington University’s Danforth Student Center, Solae Company’s headquarters, the redevelopment of St. Louis Centre, and the John Burroughs Sports and Performing Arts Center. All are LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certified projects.

Pavalec said that he thinks the future of construction is going to be “green.” Bell is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council, which is the sponsor of the LEED program. In addition to taking on “green” projects, Bell incorporates energy-saving concepts and practices into other areas of its business. Bell recycles all of the worn-out florescent light bulbs and exterior lamps collected during the execution of the company’s lighting maintenance contracts at an approved facility. The company also participates in Ameren UE’s Pure Power program on the Leader Level. Pure Power is a voluntary program that gives AmerenUE electric customers the opportunity to support wind farms and other renewable energy facilities in the Midwest. “That currently costs me more money, but in the long run using that renewable resource is good for the community and a good strategic move for Bell. This is not a fad from our end. We’ve made a strategic initiative to work on green buildings,” Pavalec said.

Energy efficiency will be the number one thing that people look for in green buildings, he said. Some of the energy-saving concepts Bell incorporates into its “green” projects include designing lighting systems in a creative way so that the client will use less wattage per square foot, and the use of occupancy sensors. “The architect and the whole team work together to make a green building happen,” Pavalec said.

Between federal leadership in the public sector and increasing pressures to cut costs in the private sector, the drive for more energy efficient buildings may be what pulls the United States out of recession, he said. On the private side, “we’ve seen the Home Depots, Lowes, and Targets get ahead of the curve and start doing energy retrofits 18 months to 2 years ago, and continue to improve upon them,” Pavalec said. “We’ve seen a lot of RFPs from owners looking for green building knowledge and wanting to know what we can help them do to save energy,” he said. On the public side, from former President George W. Bush’s order to all federal agencies to reduce energy use by at least 30 percent from 2003 levels by 2015, to stimulus money for energy efficient retrofits to public buildings, to the new efficiency standards for lighting due out in June, government actions will create demand not just for installation services, but also for value-added consulting services to help building owners sort out their best options. Together, they foreshadow another wave of work for electrical contractors staffed to offer owners early advice on energy efficiency.

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