Wollongong City Council Carpark Works

Client Brief

Wollongong City Council approached SLD requiring a quotation for the supply and installation of overhead lighting for a public carpark in Dapto. The lighting was required to meet or exceed Australian standard PC5 lighting and be mounted to lighting columns that had easy access for maintenance.

Assessment

After viewing aerial imagery and doing an onsite assessment, several advantages and challenges became apparent. The southern site of the carpark had existing street lighting that was mounted on the sides of the adjoining buildings, making is easier to achieve PC5 lighting. Additionally, the carpark is completely open with almost no disruptions to sunlight, allowing for greater freedom when proposing the locations of the lighting columns.  

Alternatively, the bitumen surface added an extra level of complication to the works as we would be required to clear the surface away before excavation could occur. Moreover, as the carpark is quite large, the lighting columns would need to be placed near the centre of the carpark, illuminating outwards, which ensured we would need to remove bitumen and restore line marking around the install locations.

Outcome

After a complete DIALux report, we submitted a quotation for our 20w and 40w Solar Blade Overhead Lights, dual mounted on our heavy duty fully 76mm diameter SLD Hinged Columns. After the acceptance of the quotation, our team used a concrete saw to remove the bitumen at the column locations. We then used non destructive excavation services to excavate the ground so we could install the foundation cages.

The installation has some unforeseen setbacks, as there was a significant amount of steel and slag under the ground, assumably disposed there by the local steel refinery during the construction of the carpark. This extended the installation time by one day, as our team was forced to used jackhammers in the excavated holes to clear the slag and reach the required depth.

Our team were able to excavate all the footings, commission the solar light fittings and erect the columns successfully. We finalised the works by toping the excavated footings with bitumen, refreshing the damaged line marking and fitting the adjacent car bays with wheel stops to protect the lighting columns. Council was pleased with the outcome.