Providing power to mobil classrooms that are used to accommodate the fast-growing needs of the Clark County School District is made easy with combination plug/receptacle and disconnect switches. The Meltric DS Deconactor™ Series switch-rated plugs and recepticles allow workers to make and break electrical connections safely and quickly without waiting for an electrician when they need to move a portable building.

The fifty-year old Clark County School District (CCSD), fifth largest school district in the United states, currently includes 314 schools. The area it serves includes Las Vegas, and is one of the fastest-growing population centers in the country. To keep up with the expanding need for schools, the District uses a large number of portable classroom buildings that can be moved wherever there is a need for additional space to reduce class sizes until permanent buildings can be built. Tom Crocker, Electrical Construction Supervisor for the District's Special Projects Department, says ten to twelve new schools are added each year.

Classrooms on the Move

Mr. Crocker reports that the District has about 1,100 mobile buildings. These include 25'x25' single-classroom stick or modular builidings, as well as 25'x60' double-wide units that are split for transport and provide two classrooms when rejoined at the site. He says that as many as 450 to 500 of the units are moved every year.

Each time a building is moved, electrical power must be disconnected at the old site and reconnected at the new location. Previously, this entailed disconnecting the wiring before moving a building and hard-wiring the control panels once the buildings were in place. Typically, it took one or two journeyman electricians as much as eight hours to run the needed conduit.

Safer and Faster Connections

Mr. Crocker estimates that the District's investment in the new plugs and receptacles will pay for itself by the second or third year, especially in labor savings. He says, "One of our goals is to cut down on the overtime needed to move and hook up the buildings. Another is to reduce the cost of wire, conduit and other materials we use. It's going to save so much time, material and labor expense in the future, that it is well worth the investment."

To date, approximately 350 of the portable buildings have been equipped, with more than 100 additional devices ordered. Looking to the future, the District now is ordering all new portable buildings to be equipped with the Decontactors. Crocker says, "They will be pre-wired at the factory, so all we have to do before we plug them in is to check to see they are wired properly and make up the cords from the main power supply."

Information courtesy of Meltric Corporation