NEWS & EDUCATION

Not everyone gets to dig in the dirt, let alone underneath the surface of a roadway, but that’s what Electric Conduit Construction does for a living. They are often working below ground to install high speed fiber optic cable, electric power or natural gas lines for utility companies.

Electric Conduit Construction is constantly looking to better serve their customers and add additional expertise to their construction crews. They have continued to do so by adding the Mud Dog Hydro-Vac truck to their tool box of specialty equipment. 

Electric Conduit Construction was awarded another challenging contract. This particular project required that ECC accurately drill to a prescribed radius for a total distance of 900’ under Interstate 294 near O’Hare Airport, northwest of Chicago, Illinois.

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.