With the constant desire to improve the look of your marina combined with striving to meet the needs of your customers, marina managers are often looking to offer the best standard of service with the most up to date technology. This can become a financial strain particularly during the current economic climate. One solution to this is retro-fitting which can come in a number of different ways - either by installing new pedestals but utilising the existing cable infrastructure or by adding additional technology such as metering systems or new lighting designs into existing pedestals.
By retro fitting new pedestals onto a marina a fresh appearance can be created and perhaps a new colour scheme for pedestal shells can be introduced. A stylish designed pedestal with reliable services will offer more value to berths. You may wish to add water supplies in certain areas or increase the power supply you offer to a particular number of berths to deal with the rising demand within your marina. If this is the case the power and cable infrastructure would require surveying to ensure the size of the current power supply to the marina, and each pedestal, is adequate.
Referring to an installation by Maricer in Lymington, Hampshire last year (Pictures), as with all installations Maricer aim to keep costs to a minimum and reduce the disturbance on the pontoons. The existing main cable distribution network was re-used during this installation and new control pedestals manufactured and installed housing all relevant switchgear. A new cable network was then only necessary to supply remote connection pedestals housing socket outlets at groups of berths. By installing remote units easy access to socket outlets was created at each berth and reduced the health and safety issue of trailing electrical connection leads. Illumination was only provided at the main control pedestals but there is the option available to also provide lighting on the remote pedestal if required.
A full site survey or electrical test and inspection of your marina by an approved electrical contractor should provide enough detail to evaluate what can and cannot be achieved when looking to improve and upgrade the supplies to berths. Maricer (CPES Ltd) have 29 years experience in the design and installation of electrical distribution systems for the leisure market and have the knowledge and experience to advise you on the way forward with any proposed alteration or upgrade of pontoon and boatyard services.
There are many simple and cost effective ways to retro fit services within your electrical pedestals. Maricer pedestals are all designed around a chassis manufactured from HDPE (High Density Polyethylene). This has a range of connection positions CNC routed at the time of manufacture to cater for the easy connection of additional meters, switchgear or other components. Because the chassis is HDPE if you require an additional position it is a simple task to drill a further hole. This is not necessarily the case with galvanised steel chassis offered by some other manufacturers which of course are also liable to corrode.
One of the main constraints when retro-fitting components into existing pedestals is the lack of available space. Maricer pedestals are designed and internally configured to maximise the internal space available whilst allowing for possible future upgrades. You may wish to add one of the many metering systems on the market such as standard credit meters, pre-paid card meters or the single module credit meter designed to be mounted behind an existing customer reset flap. Maricer can supply all parts required along with skilled advice when retro fitting into your existing pedestals. Because of our complete ‘in-house design and manufacture’ capability we can also create bespoke pedestals subject to quantity and engineering constraints.
Smart Metering is the latest addition to Maricers portfolio of products which again can, in some cases, be retro-fitted into your existing pedestals. Smart Metering allows you ultimate control over the services you offer within your boatyard and on pontoons. The meters display and transmit collated data automatically, or on demand, from each berth to the computer located in your office. The office can be at a remote location and can also accept the data from multiple sites allowing superior management of the increasingly expensive services you offer in your marina or boatyard. Commercially and environmentally it is no longer seen as acceptable to continue using and / or supplying utilities without some form of control. Smart Metering is the ultimate control you can have and is increasingly being accepted as the way forward in site management.
As featured in the previous issue of Euromarina, the new Emergency Centre is now available from Maricer. The Emergency Centre can be easily retro fitted at strategic positions within you marina usually requiring a limited amount of cabling to be installed from the nearest power supply. The Emergency Centre can be supplied in a number of formats including as an empty shell for you to fit equipment into yourself to a fully charged centre with lifebuoy, fire extinguisher, first aid kit, door alarm with neon indication and full fire hose kit and connections.
Another factor you may like to consider when retro fitting is upgrading your lighting. Using up to date lighting technology you can transform the look of the marina from dusk till dawn while lowering your energy consumption. Firstly Maricer offer an energy saving 16W lamp in ‘daylight white’ with a lifespan of 10,000 hours approximately. The second option is LED lighting which can offer significant cost savings over time, not only due to reduced energy consumption, but also owing to negligible maintenance needs. The typical lifespan is 30 – 50,000 hours and LED’s tend to fade slowly over time compared to traditional lighting allowing ample opportunity to plan replacements.
Retro-fitting does not have to be a whole marina re-fit, it may be one pontoon or strategically located lighting pedestals. Maricer have developed a range of lighting pedestals to compliment our service pedestals. Manufactured from the same robust material and to the same design, differing height options are available to enhance and compliment any area of your marina.
Maricer can supply a wide range of replacement components to suit other manufacturers pedestals, and can fabricate replacement sides, lids and diffusers for these pedestals also.
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