Auckland apartment & multi-unit developments

On an apartment build, the low-voltage package is where your programme slips

Fibre, data, CCTV, intercom, access control and TV reticulation on Auckland apartment and multi-unit developments, designed, installed, tested and handed over as one subcontract, by one contractor who carries the Chorus obligations with it.

✓ One subcontract, not five
✓ Chorus MDU obligations included
✓ Fluke-tested and documented at handover

Send us your drawings 0800 222 546

The package that falls between trades

On a multi-unit build, the low-voltage work doesn’t belong cleanly to anyone. The electrical subcontractor prices power and lighting. A security company prices cameras. Someone assumes Chorus is doing the fibre. The intercom turns up as a provisional sum, and the TV reticulation gets noticed at month nine.

Each of those is a small gap on its own. Together they are the reason the comms package is so often the last thing holding up an otherwise finished building.

The expensive version of this problem is simple: the cabling fails after the walls are closed, and the only way to fix it is to open them again.

Chorus supplies the fibre. You install most of it.

This is the most common misunderstanding on a multi-dwelling development, and it is worth being precise about, because the cost of getting it wrong lands on the main contractor. Under Chorus’s published MDU requirements the work splits roughly like this.

Chorus supplies and does

The lead-in fibre cable, the first terminal and the lead-in pipe
Fibre materials for the distribution and drop network
Termination of the distribution and drop cables
End-to-end fibre testing and a quality audit
Installing and provisioning the ONT in each premises

The development supplies and does

Trenching and laying the lead-in pipe
In-building mounting infrastructure, trays, brackets, fixings
Installation consumables and conduit
Installing the distribution and drop cabling to every premises
All premises cabling beyond the ONT
Testing and commissioning the data and telephony cabling
Designing the premises network, drop pathways and ONT locations

That fourth item is the one that surprises people. Chorus hands over the fibre and terminates it. Pulling it up the riser and into every apartment is the development’s job, which means it is a subcontract somebody has to let, price and programme.

Five details that are cheap on paper and expensive on site

1. Test before the walls close

Chorus’s own sequencing is explicit: finish testing before walls are sealed, so a faulty cable can be replaced without cutting into finished linings. A fibre that fails after the gib is on stops being a cabling problem and becomes remedial works.

2. ONTs cannot be grouped in the comms room

Chorus requires an ONT at each premises, in a non-metallic distributor hub, not clustered centrally. If the unit layouts leave nowhere sensible for a hub, that surfaces during fit-out, by which time the joinery is usually in.

3. The riser duct is sized by unit count

Chorus specifies a 50mm lead-in up to 12 premises and 100mm above that, with a 20mm green pipe per premises. Sized on the drawings it costs nothing. Sized after the slab is poured it costs a great deal.

4. So is the building distributor

Up to 6 premises takes a small wall unit. Thirteen to 48 needs roughly 650 × 400 × 175mm. Above 48 it becomes about 900 × 900 × 300mm with around 1.5m of working space in front. That cupboard has to exist in the architectural drawings, not be found later.

5. Two fibres per connection, one subunit per floor

Chorus asks for a minimum of two fibres to every connection, with each subunit allocated to a single floor and spares retained. Dimension the riser for that at design stage and later changes stay cheap.

Everything low-voltage, under one subcontract

Fibre and Chorus coordination, riser and drop cabling, duct and building distributor provisioning, coordination through to ONT installation
Structured cabling, data to living areas and bedrooms, a comms enclosure per unit, Fluke-tested and certified
Building communications room, lockable rack, UPS backing, managed switching and secure remote access
CCTV, common areas, entries, carparks and lifts, with recording and remote access
Access control, readers, controllers, door hardware interfaces and battery backup
Intercom, entrance station through to apartment handsets, with door release
TV reticulation, free-to-air and satellite distribution to every unit

Where an element needs a specialist, we bring one in under our subcontract rather than handing you a second contract. You keep one programme, one set of interfaces and one contractor answerable for the lot.

The interfaces are where the money goes

Every one of those systems has to talk to at least one other. The intercom releases the door, which belongs to access control. The lift needs an emergency line, which belongs to comms. The fire alarm releases the doors, which belongs to everyone.

Split across four subcontractors, each interface becomes a negotiation, and every negotiation is a variation waiting to happen. Let the package once and the interfaces sit inside the subcontract, our problem, not an RFI on your desk.

What you get when we leave

As-built drawings of the installed network
Fluke test results for every outlet
A labelled rack and riser schedule

Send us the drawings

Send the electrical and architectural drawings and we will come back with a scope and a price for the whole low-voltage package. If the drawings are not finished, earlier is better, most of the expensive problems on this page are free to fix while the design is still moving.

Send your drawings 0800 222 546