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Customer application April 14, 2020
Efficient Construction with Pluggable Electrical Installation

At the beginning of 2019, Dissen am Teutoburger Wald commissioned the construction of a day care center and kindergarten. The challenge: The first two groups were already scheduled to start in early summer. For the construction period of only 12 weeks, the electrical engineers relied on the time-efficient WINSTA® Pluggable Connection System from WAGO.

Kindergarten spots are scarce in Germany and urgently needed. Dissen in Lower Saxony is facing this problem as well: According to the Cologne Institute for Economic Research, there is a shortage of 30,500 day care spots in Lower Saxony alone.

To ease the tense day care availability situation for communities and families as quickly as possible, Dissen commissioned the construction of a day care center and kindergarten at the beginning of 2019. Assuming conventional construction methods, the planners expected a construction time of three quarters to one year, which was far too long for many parents, the city of Dissen and the developer, Charly’s Kinderparadies. It was clear to Heinrich Mackensen, the first chairmen of the trustee organization, that conventional construction methods would not suffice for a tighter construction deadline. The solution: two wood-frame buildings and pluggable electrical installation with WINSTA® from WAGO.

The Benefits for You:

  • Minimal installation time through optimal planning with a pre-assembled system solution

  • Protection against mismating with appropriate pre-assembled cables and standard components

  • Straightforward connection to electrical components such as sockets and lights by WINSTA® system partners

An Ambitious Construction Project

To erect the two buildings in just twelve weeks, the planners needed time efficiency above all else. Therefore, state-of-the-art wood-frame structures, which are custom-assembled in advance with exterior and interior walls already included, provided the basic skeleton of the day care center and kindergarten – this saves time during construction, as well as in the subsequent connection phase.

Two companies that specialize in timber construction were hired to build the day care and kindergarten buildings simultaneously. Two construction concepts came into play. The builders of the kindergarten building provided the exterior walls of the wood-frame structure with OSB on one side. The interior walls arrived at the construction site still unsealed. In this construction method, it was possible to lay all the conduits and cables in the walls right at the construction site. The walls were then sealed and filled with installation after this work was finished. For construction of the two-story day care center, the timber construction company chose a different approach. The walls were already provided with complete closed conduits in the workshop and delivered to the construction site already sealed. The conduits of both construction concepts offered an additional crucial time advantage: The electrical cables no longer required a time-consuming laying phase and could instead simply be inserted into the conduits and plugged without errors.

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Using WINSTA® allowed us to cut our team in half and conclude all work on time without additional expense.

Hans-Georg Rethmann, Technical Director of Elektro Herkenhoff GmbH & Co. KG

Plugging Instead of Clamping

The planners broke new ground with the electrical installation. “Because of the time constraints, we chose pluggable installation,” explains Heinz Repin, the planner in charge at the engineering firm Greve. “When we reviewed the pluggable systems available on the market, WAGO’s WINSTA® clearly stood out. We were looking for the simplest and best solution. WINSTA® offered all the components needed for the work in the day care center and kindergarten with round pluggable connectors. To lay the cables in the walls quickly, we used 25 mm conduits. Using cables with rectangular plugs would have required significantly larger conduits.” The planners got matching switches and sockets from Peha Elektro GmbH, a WINSTA® system partner.

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The WINSTA® Pluggable Connection System from WAGO, which is especially appropriate for buildings with cavity walls, was the ideal solution for the construction projects in Dissen. “With this contract, we entered uncharted territory,” admits Hans-Georg Rethmann, Technical Director of Elektro Herkenhoff GmbH & Co. KG. “It was the first building for which we used pluggable connections for the entire electrical installation.” In this process, the entire cabling, with all the sockets, switches and distribution boxes, was designed precisely in advance; thanks to the pre-assembled cables, it was then very easy to simply plug everything in at the construction site. “At construction sites of this size, we need about 14 to 16 employees in the construction phase,” he explains further. “Using WINSTA® allowed us to cut our team in half and conclude all the work on time without additional expense.”

When it Comes to Installation, Good Planning is Half the Work

This project was a new challenge for Heinz Repin too. “Plugging instead of clamping,” he explains, “speeds up the work at the construction site a great deal, but also requires very extensive and precise planning.” The engineering firm Greve had drawn up all the plans in great detail. All the cables were placed precisely in the drawings. The documents listed every cable length, each socket was dimensioned, and all the functions of the switch cabinets were described in detail. Good planning pays off: Using WINSTA® and its pre-assembled pluggable system components cuts the installation time at the construction site in half. Repin’s planning also benefit from this: “We needed more time for planning, coordination meetings and follow-up, but the time savings in the construction phase made up for that several times over.”

Elektro Herkenhoff also adapted quickly to working with WINSTA® “The unfamiliar part for us was the logistics,” explains Rethmann. “We ordered all the material in advance. In our warehouse, we then assigned all the materials to individual rooms of the day care center and kindergarten and delivered them to the site according to the current stage of construction.”

System Synergies for Greater Efficiency

Systems designed to work together perfectly make installers’ job easier at the construction site and speed up the work process. The planners in Dissen took advantage of this for additional time savings: All the switches and sockets, as well as the lighting, were supplied with a WINSTA® connection option, so they already had integrated pluggable connectors and could be connected to the WAGO system very easily. For example, the downlights were already equipped with WINSTA® cables in the electrical workshop, so all that remained at the construction site was to plug them into the system. “Wonderfully quick and easy work for us,” recalls Hans-Georg Rethmann. “The carpenters cut the holes for the downlights, and all we needed to do was attach the lights and plug them in, and everything worked. Our experience with WINSTA® was definitely positive. The system allowed us to minimize the work at the construction site and stay on schedule.” The day care center opened in May of 2019; the kindergarten followed a few weeks later.

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Hard facts: What WINSTA® components were installed?

  • 15 system boxes
  • 7 distribution boxes
  • 243 T-distribution connectors
  • 80 h-distribution connectors
  • 60 sockets
  • 936 cables, for a total length of 4,168 m (13,675 feet)

Text: Liza Baudisch, WAGO

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Five Questions for ...

Hans-Georg Rethmann, Technical Director of Elektro Herkenhoff GmbH & Co. KG