Power Poles and Low-Voltage Drops for a Retail Store Buildout in Vancouver, WA

A Vancouver auto parts store was rebuilding its sales floor and adding new counter space, and every new fixture needed power and data right where it stood. Newman Electric dropped both from the ceiling in EMT power poles and mounted quad outlets on the pegboard gondolas, so nothing on the floor runs off an extension cord.

Why power poles on a sales floor

In a store with a drop ceiling and a floor nobody wants to cut, there are two ways to get power to a fixture in the middle of the room: cut the slab, or come down from above. Coming down from the ceiling is faster, costs far less, and is easy to move when the floor plan changes again.

A power pole in EMT:

• Protects the conductors at a height where carts, ladders and customers will bump it
• Carries power and low-voltage to the same spot, so the counter gets both
• Comes back out cleanly if the fixtures move in the next remodel

Working from the store’s plan

The store sent a marked floor plan showing every location that needed low-voltage. The plan called for 33 data runs across the store. We set the power and low-voltage drops at the new counter space and fixtures to match it, so cabling could go in without guessing where things would end up.

That kind of coordination is most of what makes tenant improvement electrical go smoothly. When the fixture installers, data tech and electrician all work off the same plan, nobody finishes their part and then finds a gondola sitting on top of an outlet.

Outlets where the fixtures are

The quad receptacles went directly on the gondolas, at the height staff actually reach, instead of on a wall twenty feet away. For a busy parts counter, that’s the difference between a tidy counter and a floor full of cords.

Running a buildout or moving fixtures in a store? See our commercial electrician work in Vancouver, call 360-828-7143, or send us your marked floor plan.