The Spaghetti of Underground MEP
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Conduit lines carrying electrical and solar (as well as a spare or two) go into the student housing building.
In the construction world, MEP stands for “mechanical, electrical and plumbing.” For our project this refers primarily to our electrical and lighting systems (installed by Palmeri Electric), plumbing and water systems (M.J. Moran), solar system (Northeast Solar) and our fire sprinkler system (Fire Service Group). Connecting and supplying all these systems requires a large amount of planning (our recurring blog theme), and the layout can be quite impressive.
A smooth, neat hole after coring the foundation.
Hand dug trenches for water lines to exterior wall spigots run along the floor of the dining hall.
One thing I learned was how these supply lines are typically brought into a building basement. In some cases, they are trenched up to the foundation and then rise up along the exterior wall for an above-grade penetration into the sill or at joist level of the building. In other instances, they might actually penetrate the foundation below grade. I always assumed that a piece of conduit or tubing would be part of the cement form to create a hole during the foundation pouring. While this can and is done sometimes, it is now common to actually drill holes in the concrete wall after the concrete has cured.
This process allows the holes to be sized and located with great precision and also creates some pretty nifty looking cement cores that are fun to look at. The drills/saws they use are impressive, and are designed not only to cut through the concrete but also the rock and steel rebar that is part of the structure.
A complicated spaghetti of electrical conduit for outlets, switches, and exterior lights in the dining hall.
Rather than thread many different wires or pipes through conduits, it makes more sense to do just one or two per conduit. As a result there is a lot of conduit running around the site and under the floors. This is a three-dimensional challenge, as many of the different systems are set at different depths in the ground. Heating supply is the deepest, followed by other plumbing and with electrical near the top.
