NEWS & EDUCATION

The Construct program is a joint initiative between contractors in the City of Chicago and various agencies that serve the inner city community. Started by Com Ed, the purpose of the program is to teach solid life and work skills and give young adults opportunities to develop careers in industries that can support them for the rest of their life. 

For many a steady job is a way of life. It can be a different story in the City. Life skills and work habits are not always taught. Work skills in a trade usually are not taught anywhere!

Over its 55 year history Electric Conduit Construction has installed thousands of miles of underground utilities. Many lessons have been learned about how to avoid damage to crossing and parallel utility infrastructure.

The day was bright and cold. Air temperature and water temperature matched at 37 degrees. But for everyone participating in the Polar Plunge adrenalin was keeping them all warm.

Electric Conduit Construction & Midwestern Contractors set up the domain www.GoodSafetyCatch.com . The purpose was to design a web based vehicle that would allow our employees to report hazardous situations and near misses to our safety supervisors, in real time. 

Thanks to our safety minded crews a mislabeled 480 volt breaker was still energized after the crew placed it in the off position. As it turned out the breaker that they thought would deenergize the pump house they were working in, in fact, killed the power to another pump house.

Control of electrical substations is a critical part of a utilities' business. These stations perform many functions for utility companies. The most important is stepping down the transmission voltage levels, through the use of step down transformers, to distribute power, at a useable voltage to homes and businesses.

A fiber optic cable project brought our crews into the heart of the city on Michigan Avenue. Work zone protections were in place, traffic control was being set up and all locates were called and marked. 

Small cell installations only work well when high speed backhaul is available. This usually means proximity to a fiber optic trunk cable. One of our customers, a major telecommunications company, engineered a series of small cell sites that had to be installed and tested.

It is a long way up a 200' tower. Four men became ants when they reached the very top. An all terrain crane was rigged, and its telescoping boom was already 50' above the level of the tower. The winds were calm as the crew rigged the lifting slings and began to unbolt the top section. 

For any company that works underground the possibility of striking a utility is everpresent. The denser the population the more likely that foreign utilities will cross the work space. Electric Conduit Construction is diligent when excavating or drilling.

Electric Conduit Construction sponsored crew training for Confined Space work. Over twenty foremen, crew members and management attended a two hour safety workshop on how to enter and work in confined spaces do it safely. Most confined space deaths occur due to toxic atmospheres.