Project Description
Minto Gardens is an all-encompassing supportive community environment for seniors, comprising of a 100 bed Residential Care Facility (RCF), Social and affordable housing (SAH) along with independent Living Units (ILU’s) totaling 345 apartments located in 10 residential buildings, secure covered parking, vibrant and engaging community spaces, facilities, and site infrastructure.
The site also hosts a large community centre, a café, extensive landscaping with a kids play area, pet friendly facilities, a variety of internal and external communal spaces for all residents, and a range of outdoor amenities to promote health and social interaction.
Kerfoot was engaged to undertake the design finalisation of the Electrical & Communication Installation and Site Wide Infrastructure including, supply, installation, testing, commissioning, and hand over of all Works to provide a seamless turnkey solution for the client.
Specific items within the scope of this project were:
- External Services & Works
- Site Establishment
- Consumer Mains from Substation to MSB
- Trenching & Conduits for power & NBN
- Submains to all Buildings
- Cable Pathway to Data network & other related services
- External lighting &poles (Including footings)
- Pump room Fitout
- Wiring from power meters to data loggers
- Cable supports including tray
- Main Switchboard
- Metering & earthing
- 350KVA Backup generator
- Distribution Boards
- Mechanical Electrical
- SolarBMS
- Lightning Protection
- Supply & Install Light Fittings
- Circuitry including sockets, switching & switch circuitry
- Emergency & Exit Lighting
- Power Circuits including sockets & outlets
- Communication network
- MATV
- Access Control
- Intercom
- CCTV
- Fire Detection & Occupation Warning System
- Nurse call
Project Accolades
Temporary power needed to be connected across the whole site, with no option to run underground cabling due to a large rock face and site being in a tree protection zone. Overhead was also ruled out due to the logistics with 2x tower cranes and 3 additional mobile cranes all running. Working to Clause 2.5.2 (b) states that construction wiring cannot be connected to a free-standing fence. Therefore, we designed and constructed a fixed non-freestanding fence that was compliant and successful.
Thinking forward on the project gave rise to our design and installation of the inground system which allowed time and cost saving while catering for the multiple re-routing of the cables throughout the project in readiness for major shutdowns and the supply to site to be changed over 3 times due to the infrastructure upgrades.
With a major focus on providing the client with options to reduce their carbon footprint, Kerfoot put forward and used GPON technology to allow us to consolidate multiple services onto a single fibre network. The end result is an avant-garde, customised, high-capacity fiber network for all forms of services which in this case included CCTV, Security, Interactive signage, Access control and door entry, high speed internet and BMS metering.
The GPON System, offered the client many short- and long-term cost savings. Installation of the system used 80% less copper and power savings of 60% less than traditional networks. The use of the fibre Network also boosts the Green Star Rating of the install as the fibre is made from glass which is recyclable. This in turn reduces the cooling requirements of associated equipment by up to 90%.
Quality products design and installation methods are the cornerstone of Kerfoot’s solar installation ensuring confidence in the system performance and installed high quality 4 x 6.6Kw solar PV Array systems at buildings A,B,C and D. Being one system for each building, along with 2 x 13.2 Kw solar PV Array systems at buildings F and I again one system for each feeding back into the grid when available.
Kerfoot are passionate about the work we do and were extremely proud of our achievements on this project.
