Two Things To Consider When Planning The Electrical System In Your Building

One of the most important things you need to think about as you are building an office building is making sure that it is future proof. With the explosion in technology in the workplace today, without proper planning your building's wiring can quickly become inadequate for future tenants. Here are 2 things to consider before you put up the sheetrock.

Where will the servers be?

While many companies put their servers in a colocation facility, many companies choose to forgo that cost and put their servers in their office space instead. Make sure that there are rooms in the building that will be adequate for their needs. These rooms will need multiple sets of outlets, each on a separate circuit. In order to help your future tenants out, it can be beneficial to place those sets of plugs right next to each other. That way there is a clear location for the machines.

You will also want to make sure that these server areas are plumbed for extra air conditioning too. While you may not want the high initial cost of putting in additional cooling units until a tenant is in the space, make sure that you have power and conduit installed for the air conditioners. To save on future electrical costs, consider setting the potential server area up with some features that data centers usually have. Features like space for the cooling at the bottom of a server rack and the ability to create hot and cold sections can be very intriguing for companies.

How much power will companies require?

While there is a trend to move towards lower powered computing, people always need more power. Look into wiring your building with the future in mind. Put in heavy gauge wire and larger than usual amperage breakers so that you won't run into frequent power failures. Often building heating and cooling can be an issue, so employees will bring in space heaters and fans. If there are too many on any individual circuit, they can trip your breakers because they need so many watts to do their job. Overbuilding your electrical grid will help ensure that you don't have tenants who are calling you and complaining about the breakers always tripping.

By following these steps, you will make your building more marketable and keep your tenants happier! This will pay off immeasurably over time as you are able to keep your building fully occupied as a result of the extra work and electrical services you put in on the front end.