Projects

Sudlows of Watford have secured contracts with BT to upgrade many of their existing exchanges and facilities across the UK to accommodate the expansion and improvements to fibre broadband, data storage and modern high grade telecommunication systems.

The old Exchange building, originally designed to house the old switching systems for traditional land line phones, required complete remodelling internally to accommodate the latest equipment as demand for data storage and high speed information exchange and communication rapidly increases. Such facilities also need to be built with a very high level of security at the forefront of their design and with a dedicated power supply and emergency back up to ensure that the operation is failsafe. With much of the country’s data storage and exchange infrastructure totally dependent on such facilities now, even the smallest failure or disruption could have a potentially devastating impact.

With some of the electrical installation already underway, Randall Contracting worked closely with Sudlows to coordinate the builders work with the ongoing electrical installation to maintain what was a very tight and demanding programme. The internal layout had to be totally reconfigured, requiring the removal of existing walls, forming new openings, closing up existing and building high security containment partitions. Many of the walls were load bearing and required temporary works to enable the alterations to be carried out including the design and installation of permanent structural steelwork.

To ensure sufficient and continuous power supply, a new UKPN Sub-station had to be built adjacent to the exchange and a standby generator housing formed within the building.

The construction of the Sub-station required the removal of existing outbuilding foundations and the installation of service ducts threaded through a myriad of existing underground services to enable connection to the mains located in the public highway. The substation was constructed to UKPN specification and handed over snag free and on programme ready for the installation of the new UKPN transformer and associated equipment.