The Scramble at the End

My time working on the security crew at my job will soon come to an end - as soon as we finish the security system. The last week will be taken up with work on every single kind of loose end imaginable. It's not that we've been irresponsible about getting aspects of the system completed. Security work is almost COMPLETELY reliant on other trades to have their work done on time and correctly. You can't install a door contact on a door that isn't there. You can't wire the handset of a lock when the door that was ordered is incorrect, lacking a raceway from the electric hinge to the handset. But these problems all work themselves out eventually. They're stressful, but the last few weeks of a security install are the best.

Security work begins with endless days of pulling teeny-tiny wire from every secure door to the security panel. Different doors would get different combinations of cable. Sometimes two 18/2s, a 22/4, and a 12/2. Sometimes just one 18/2, a 22/8, a 22/4, and a 12/2. Keeping everything organized and strapped down neatly in the cable tray is tedious and slow-moving work. Not at all exciting and when I first found myself on the security crew I was something less than thrilled about it.

After all the cables were pulled, however, life on the security crew improved dramatically. Installing RRE panels (the computers that controlled each door's security) and card readers, keypads and door contacts was rewarding. Wiring each of these pieces of equipment and setting up the panels and server racks back in the security closet was a lot of fun. 'Normal' electrical work is pretty straight forward. Voltage, phase, hot, neutral and ground. But in the security world it's low-voltage DC power and circuit boards that make up functional system. Having dip switches set appropriately and ensuring that the correct wires are landed in the correct location on a terminal strip depending on the configuration of a door was anything but mindless drudgery.

As I mentioned above, it's when the system is substantially complete and mostly up and running that the real fun begins. Trying to trouble shoot the doors that won't come on-line requires a systematic approach and an understanding of how the system works, both in the computer controlling the system and electrically over the length of the circuit.

I've been very lucky to land in security work. I've gotten to install some pretty high-tech pieces of equipment. I've installed, wired, brought on-line, aimed and addressed video cameras that cost more than my car. I've built and installed a server system with 44 terabytes of memory. I've wired transformers and rectifiers. I've dealt with fiber optics. I'll miss it when the project wraps up at the end of next week and I'm off to another job.

It's almost February?!?

Well, the holidays are finally over. They were great but they seemed to last forever!

Security work has been growing on me. It took a bit of getting used to but I finally feel normal carrying around a tiny little control screwdriver and a set of strippers that only go up to 18 wire. The security system we've been working on is pretty extensive for a modestly sized building. There are card readers to wire, motion sensors to install, key pads to mount and a 'blue light' system that uses push switches to set off blue strobes in a room to signal that a non-Top Secret cleared person is in the room. There's a switch and a strobe in every room and hall in the secure area. I suggested that we just build a hat with a battery powered blue strobe mounted on top that visitors could wear to save money on the install but nobody seemed to think a helmet with a blinking blue light was a good idea.

And inevitably, as the deadlines get closer, the pressure builds.

Today we were supposed to finish pulling the fiber optic cables out to the poll-mounted cameras in the parking lot. Of course as soon as we started we discovered that the company doing the site grading had crushed all of our PVC. So instead of pulling we ended up digging.

One of the roof mounted cameras had to be reinstalled after the mounting plate started to pull out. Doors that need locks wired were either ordered improperly or sent from the factory with out the correct holes drilled.

And that's just this week. But the challenges are fun and the overtime is appreciated. I'll leave you with a little bit of proof that a break spent stuck on a snowy roof doesn't need to be boring.

It's been a while...

Last time I posted I told you I wasn't dead. Judging by the look Ralph gave me when I was in school last time, I will be if I donn't get something posted!

Life has been crazy for the last few months but work has gone very well. Since I last posted my company transfered me to a military base in Virginia where I'm working on a headquarters building. I've had the opportunity to do a number of different jobs in the couple of months I've been there. Working on getting the backup generator lifted into the generator enclosure was a highlight. We're studying rigging and lifting in class right now and watching a crew of professionals lift a 15 ton generator 30' in the air and land it with an inch of its final location was impressive.

I've also gotten a chance to basically construct the two of the building's electrical closets by myself. Unfortunately the job is all MC and the customer wants a very orderly appearance. I ended up spending a month in the ground floor closet hanging transformers, mounting panels, setting up cross mounted strut and hanging cable tray to run the MC from the place it comes into the closet to the appropriate panel. Then I got to start trying to relabel, dress, and land the circuits. It would have been easier to mount a trough on the wall and bring the circuits down in pipe but my forman wanted the circuits landed directly. It took a long time but I'm really proud of how well the closets turned out. I'd take a picture but I'm pretty sure the security folks on base would frown on pictures of their building being posted on the internet.

Speaking of security, I currently find myself on my company's security team. I've spent the last few weeks pulling a huge number of cables to each secured door in the building, mounting security panels and hanging cameras outside of the building. I've gotten a chance to spend some time pulling fiber optic cable which is pretty cool. We have one more floor worth of wire to pull, then the termination begins!

Expect a bit less time between posts from now on...

I'm Not Dead!

The last month has been wild. The JATC transfers apprentices every year to broaden our experience in the field and I transfered almost a month ago. I went from a company working a relatively small job at a hospital in downtown DC to a company working a MASSIVE data center in Ashburn, Virginia.

The first thing that hit me was the scale of the project. There were never more than 15 electricians at the hospital. Even when I worked outages, there were maybe 25 to 30 electricians, tops. I showed up my first day in Ashburn and there were over 100 electricians - just electricians - at the jobsite.

The work is completely different too. I was used to running small pipe, 3/4" or 1", pulling wire in conduit, wiring equipment, etc. I've found myself in a world of 3" pipe (or bigger,) load banks and bus duct in rooms the size of football fields. There's 35,000 volts coming into the building. Even the control voltage is 600v!

All of this is, of course, incredibly cool. Running big pipe is just like running small pipe but you get to use a table bender. Landing wires in load banks is just like landing wires anywhere else except the wire is bigger. All in all, it's a very cool job. I just wish Ashburn, VA wasn't so far from my house...

New Phases

Get it? Phases! It's an electrical joke... Ok, never mind.

My apprenticeship finds me in the middle of a lot of changes. I've just completed the last of the finish work in the work area I've been in since before Thanksgiving. It's amazing how much work (and pipe and wire!) went into four relatively small rooms! I've gotten to do a lot of really interesting things like wire operating booms and install isolation transformers. The last few weeks have been full of the usual little things like installing receptacles and installing engraved cover plates. As things wind down in the Operating Rooms I've been working on the next phase of the construction at the Hospital - doing demolition work on the next floor up. It couldn't be more different from the detail work I've gotten used too! That said, there's always some fun in tearing things apart!

I'm also just starting a new phase in my class work with the JATC. Book II throws you into AC - Alternating Current - and introduces things like multi-phase systems, transformers and generators. After the relative simplicity of Direct Current in Book I it's like a whole different world. Very interesting but complicated! More on Book II as I work my way through it!

The final new phase in my life is my transfer, which comes up on June 7th. The JATC transfers its apprentices every year to make sure that they get experience at multiple companies doing multiple kinds of work. It's great as far as providing me with a wealth of experience when I come out of my time but it's always a bit nerve wracking walking into a new jobsite and having to prove yourself all over again. I'll find out tomorrow where I'm going. In the mean time I have AC Theory and the National Electric Code to study for class tomorrow.

Starting Book Two

It seems like just a few days ago that I became the 'First Year Blogger' and I'm already moving on to Book Two.

As a whole, the first year of my apprenticeship has flown by. I'm twenty percent finished with the apprenticeship and a third of the way through day school. In the last year I've learned an incredible amount, both in the classroom and on the job.

Looking at the beginning of Book Two next week is a little bit intimidating. All of the journeymen and upper-year apprentices I talk to on the job say that going from DC theory in Book One to AC theory Book Two makes Book Two one of the toughest years in the apprenticeship. Along with that, though, comes the rather reassuring knowledge that most of the people that make it through Book Two complete the apprenticeship.

Hopefully since I will be able to blog Book Two from the beginning you should be able to get a better idea of how it goes.

It's been a while...

It's been quite a while since I've posted here. There are two reasons.

Reason one is that work has been incredibly busy. First a bit of background: I'm working on four new operating rooms and an MRI room in a hospital expansion. Each of those operating rooms has four operating booms coming down from the ceiling. Each one had been piped for the power circuits and the data requirements in the drawings. A few weeks ago revised drawings came out from the company handling all of the data requirements for the equipment on the job. In addition to the conduit we had already run about half of the booms would require two 2" pipes and a 1-1/4" pipe from the that boom to a new trough mounted in the wall in the sterile corridor.

This wouldn't have been a big deal except that the new trough in the wall (one for each O.R.) and all of the pipe had to be run after the walls had already been dry-walled, the air curtain duct work was up and the bulkheads built.

All of this was change order work so it made my company happy - they can charge time and materials - but it meant that we ended up way behind and we've been working weekends to get caught up.

Reason number two for my lack of posting has been that I've been working hard to finish out Book One of my apprenticeship strong. The final sections of the first book are on voltage, current and resistance in combination DC circuits. It's not exactly the hardest thing in the world. Like everything else we've learned, it's built on the concepts we've already covered. But the process to solve combination circuits is long and involved. Each step is an opportunity to make an error which would throw the entire calculation off. All the studying paid off, though, and I just finished up my last test in Book One this week. I have a CPR class next time and then it's on to Book Two.