At 4pm one afternoon we received a harried call from the property manager of one of our commercial client’s properties – the building had had an electrical fire……
Notwithstanding that we were on the other side of Melbourne, we were mobile moments after receiving the call and were on site within 30mins.
The Fire Brigade had already extinguished the fire and Citipower (the supply authority) were also in attendance to disconnect the electrical supply from the building. The cause of the fire was quickly identified – the electrical mains connection to the front of the building had simply caught fire due to old age and deterioration.
The building had 3 tenants – a pharmacy, a physiotherapist and a large group of offices on the first floor. All of which had been left without power.
After a preliminary assessment of the scale of damage to the electrical infrastructure of the building, we knew that we could get the building operational – but we needed some time. With a few well-placed requests (and a favour or two) we were able to arrange for our wholesalers to remain open for a couple hours so that we could complete a more detailed assessment of the site and build a materials list.
With our materials in hand, we set to work on repairing the fire damage under the light from temporary floodlights powered by portable generators. The damage was severe, so it took us the whole night to carry out the repair works.
As part of the repair for the site, we arranged for an electrical inspector from Citipower along with our own independent electrical inspector, to both attend the site at 6am. The inspectors jointly inspected and tested all of the repair work to ensure full functionality and safety – allowing us to arrange for reconnection of supply.
The site was powered up and running by 8.30am.
