THE PROJECT

Guarantee Electrical Company (Guarantee) was engaged by the City of Collinsville, Illinois to provide electrical and communications systems for a wholesale replacement of the City’s municipal water treatment facility.  Located across the street from the current facility constructed in 1958, the new plant expands the city’s capacity to over 5 million gallons of potable fresh water per day. Using ground water from five wells in close proximity to the 10.5 acre site, the main building’s 20,000 square foot processing units make use of the latest water treatment technologies.  Moreover, the building’s precast design features a host of modular features designed to optimize water processing operating costs, as well as reducing the overall cost of construction.

In many respects, the project represented a “front-loaded,” pre-construction driven turnkey assignment.  There were numerous details and tasks “embedded” in the precast process that would typically involve onsite workers placing devices and conduit etc. in real time in traditional construction. Overall, the process contributed to the successful construction of a technically advanced, energy-stingy facility.  As supplier of the plant’s complete electrical and communications infrastructure, which included a complete package of energy-saving exterior site and interior lighting, Guarantee provided Collinsville Water with the necessary incentive paperwork for an Ameren lighting rebate.

OUR APPROACH

Because construction of the plant’s principal building involved a precast manufacturing process, Guarantee supplied both comprehensive pre-construction planning as well as its prefabrication resources to assure accurate placement of systems to be used in the facility prior to manufacture. Naturally, this involved extensive preconstruction coordination between all the trades involved including electrical, communications, plumbing and HVAC, etc.  Any routing changes due to clashes, were discussed and determined with the architect.  GECO Engineering provided detailed pre-construction drawings providing precast mapping and precise location of all in-wall and in-slab distribution of power and data lines, as well as access controlled doorways; marking all boxes and outlets with conduit to be sleeved and pre-placed.  Once the coordination process was completed and approved, Guarantee's prefab crews prepared “box-up” assemblies of components and sleeves corresponding to each of the building’s precast panels (all exterior and some interior walls) that were shipped to Ohio to be delivered just-in-time “pre-pour” for manufacturing the building to specifications.

OUR WORK

The Collinsville project provides an excellent example of Guarantee’s adaptive design/preconstruction resources with full-service installation and construction management combining both electrical and communications services in a single “turn-key” package.  As a precast construction project, the teams of necessity had two schedules to coordinate: the first involved meeting the needs of the manufacturer and their prefabrication process; while the second managed onsite installations, electrical and systems, scheduling construction and eventually commissioning the water treatment facility.

SUCCESS

Collinsville’s water treatment facility was completed on budget within the original contract period in spite of weather delays.  In addition, the project was completed safely with zero lost time accidents or injuries.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Provided a comprehensive electrical design that supplied a complete distribution scheme encompassing the entire precast building itself, plus the in-ground infrastructure connecting the new plant to a nearby Ameren Illinois substation supplying high-voltage, primary metered power
• Installed a 2000 Amp service, including a 1MW generator and automatic transfer switches (ATS) supplying a completely redundant backup system
• As specialists in water treatment technologies, Guarantee’s electrical installation services included bringing power and controls for the filter, chemical feed, MIOX electrolytic water treatment, lime, and brine control systems.  Included installation of variable feed drives (VFD) for 400hp and 200hp high-service process and backwash pumps integral to water treatment process control
• Guarantee’s Systems team supplied comprehensive voice/data networking encompassing both a high-speed vertical backbone with the entirety of the facility’s horizontal network. This included, as well, installation of a Distributed Antennae System (DAS) supplying “line of sight” communications with the greater Collinsville community
• Systems networking supplied all cabling necessary to manage an all new fire alarm system as well as the building’s access control, including closed circuit security cameras and monitors, as well as cabling for the Supervisory Control & Data Acquisition (SCADA) system providing real-time process control monitoring via networked modules with interconnected sensors deployed throughout the water treatment process.