Case Studies

Change can be a problem in any type of utility construction project. Dealing with change requires innovation, communication and action. A well planned and well communicated change order may not be detrimental to the schedule or the cost of a project.

Municipal utility infrastructure is becoming increasingly complex. Devices like traffic signals, street lights, architectural lighting, sensors, traffic loops and cameras are now connected with fiber optic cable. This allows Counties, Villages and Municipalities to use control centers to help traffic flow, control lighting and monitor road conditions. Proper installation and maintenance is the key to achieving the design life from these systems. 

This case study discusses the right-of-way preparation, construction techniques, safety considerations necessary for the successful completion of a renewable natural gas project. The project required pipeline, fusion, fiber optic and electrical distribution work. 

Without horizontal directional drilling (HDD) infrastructure would be immensely more difficult to build. HDD allows linear structures to be placed over, under or around existing infrastructure. Modern drill tooling can penetrate rocks and concrete as well as packed sand and clay. Building intelligent transportation systems requires this technology and competent operators. Electric Conduit Construction has decades of drilling experience and this is an example of how we put it to use for our customers.

Horizontal directional drilling in high consequence areas is dangerous. Drill crews must identify all utilities and watch the drill head as it passes each one. The tracker must be absolutely certain where the drill head is at all times. When a tracking signal is lost the drill must stop immediately. This case study discusses what happens when a tracking signal is lost under a Rail Road track./

The NASCAR race slated for the summer of 2023 will draw 100,000 fans to the Grant Park area. They will all have cell phones and those phones will be pumping our data in the form of video, still images, and messabes of all types. Electric Conduit Construction won the bid to extend more 5G service into this area. Users will benefit from the larger installed fiber optic bandwidth. 5G will speed up data transfer significantly and allow the NASCAR fans to share their experience with others. 

The demand for more distribution power lines will continue to grow as EV's become more popular. More power will be needed where people charge their cars. Finding faster more efficient ways to install this type of infrastructure is a challenge to municipal, county and state jurisdictions as well as utilities, engineering and contracting firms. Speed to market will become very important. 

Long haul fiber projects require planning and repetitious work. Six crews added new cable for a run of over 300 miles. They performed the work safely by staying focused on each task. 

EV charging stations are vital to the use of electric vehicles. The level 3 systems are typically fed by 480v three phase power, rectified and fed to the car as 410v dc. With this kind of power it is important that charging stations be installed using best practices for underground construction.

This case study describes Electric Conduit Construction’s (ECC) broad capabilities with Outside Plant (OSP) installations. It details the project management, safety, directional drilling, open-cut, and aerial construction techniques used, and the deep competencies with fiber splicing, circuit integration, case audits and outage repair.

Construction projects require days, and sometimes weeks, of planning and preparation before the actual project can begin. This was the case when a major telecom company awarded Electric Conduit Construction the job of relocating 26 ducts that would ultimately carry fiber optic cable.

Distribution crews from Electric Conduit Construction (ECC), were called out when another contractor’s construction crew hit a 12 kv distribution circuit while moving a load with a sky-trac, extendable boom forklift. Molten metal exploded from the sky-trac’s forks as they created a short...

Splicing and splice enclosures are critical components in any optical network’s chain of components. This case study will focus on quality control as it applies to the repair of cables and the organization of fibers in splice enclosures.

When those red lines indicating traffic jams, show up on your phone it is due to data coming in from other drivers stopped ahead of you. Soon there will be more data, and more machines talking to machines than people talking to people. Enabling this wave of connectivity are the engineers who invent the systems...

Forty miles is 211,000 feet. This is the distance over which we installed a ring of fiber optic cable. The purpose was to link two data centers for increased bandwidth, speed and reliability. 65% of the work was underground. The remaining 35% was aerial fiber.

The State of Illinois planned an extensive renovation project for the intersection of Rt59 and Lockport Rd. This project impacted our customer’s communications cables in an existing manhole. Our scope of work included rebuilding the manhole without disrupting communications, shortening the new manhole to accommodate the lower subgrade, and relocating the conduit duct packages to make room for a crossing water main.

The City of Oak Park was renovating its downtown shopping district. The renovation consisted of a new street, street lights, and water and sewer mains. Two existing utility manholes and a multi-duct package were in the way of the street construction.

In October, 2006 during the construction of the O’Hare Field expansion a contractor hit and severed an entire duct package near a runway. This was a critical duct package and caused crippling outages at O’Hare. Our customer called us in on an emergency basis to fix the damage.

Manhole mapping is tedious work to those performing it, however it is extremely valuable to the carrier that is trying to find an economical way to route new fiber optic cable for a small cell installation. Electric Conduit Construction (ECC) won a project in Kentucky to document all ducts in over 100 manholes scattered along five different routes.

Joint trench is an odd term. Most people would not know what you were talking about when using that term, but in the utility world a joint trench is one that is shared by a number of utility providers. A joint trench can contain gas and electric, or gas, electric and communications, or any combination of multiple utilities.

Fast back haul is a key ingredient to make small cell installations work. In a city like Chicago the density of buildings makes small cell a natural solution. It just takes a lot of them to get the job done. Line of site still dictates location of the radio receivers and transmitters. But finding the right location is a problem that is easy to solve since most radio/antenna packages can be located on specially constructed street lights.

Every fall the Chicago Marathon draws over 1.5 million people. The City welcomes them with open arms. Restaurants fill to capacity, it is hard to get a hotel room, traffic is snarled, parking is impossible and cellular networks are stressed, especially on race day. 

The move to 5G's higher operating frequencies will demand smaller but more numerous antennas to accommodate the anticipated increase in connection density of the Internet of Things and machine to machine communications. Turning design into reality is the job of Electric Conduit Construction (ECC).