Elm East office updates – Elm Electrical

The Marlborough Office in whole was quiet for most of 2021, but has grown over the past year with help from the Construction Department. Elm East merged Water & Wastewater projects on the eastern side of the state into the steady workload at Ken’s and other core customers like H&V Walpole and 3M Rockland.

Here is look back at what Elm East is doing now and a look at what is ahead.

October 2021 and into the winter months… Kevin Olszewski ran another large Ken’s Project installing (2) new 800A Chillers with Gas cooler packages on the roof of the facility. Not surprising this work could have been done in the summer, but due to material delays the crew had to install 1800 feet 3” Aluminum Rigid split between 2 services during the coldest stretch of the winter. The project is being wrapped up now and came out great.

Winter 2021 -2022… Mike Saltmarsh received a call from 3M Rockland 5:30 p.m. on a Friday and, of course, it was an emergency call. Line 1 is on fire and the fire department came in and hosed down the entire Service #1. Elm gathered the troops and Andrew Sareault, Dave Reed and Josh Palmer engaged that night and spent the next 2 weeks onsite with everyone Elm East had to offer to get them back up and running.

Into the Spring of 2022… Dave Reed & Andrew Sareault led a team through a new Sodium Hypo Upgrade of 5 pumps, control panels and associated instrumentation. The project was delayed due to an engineer’s mistake and Elm stepped up and basically engineered the project back to life by retrofitting new ABB breakers within an existing obsolete GE Specta Series panel. Long story short, Elm had some major obstacles to clear and they pulled it off. This project included an overnight shift, ABB Factory Services, State Inspections, etc. as Dave, Jake Tompkins, Matt Hewes, Alex Marcinowski rebuilt the Panel PP1 with everyone in attendance. Kind of like when you’re on the first tee and everyone stops to watch except this time, Elm hit it down the middle! The project is 80% complete as we enter cutting over the final 3 pumps from single phase drives to 3 phase drives and integrating existing controls to the auxiliary box Milton Roy Controls. Steve Dias and Andrew Saraeult have this covered.

Summer 2022… As spring ended summer came in hot as a small $35,000 roof replacement project at Loker Elementary School turned into currently a $550,000 project with a start date of 6/27/2022 and an end date of 8/27/2022. With no one to turn to Mike Saltmarsh went with ole reliable Dave Reed to run the show. Dave needed some WD-40 for his tools but hasn’t missed a beat! Along with his Robin (Josh Palmer) and the rest of the crew Alex, Kev O, Matt Hewes, Jake, Andrew, Andrew K, Jose Dones & Keith Arvanitis. The Project remains on time and on budget even with half the panels not showing up until late September. Elm used means & methods not typically used to pull this off and not to mention installing 1200 Amps of power to code in a room 8’ wide x 16’ long with 1 egress.

During the Loker Project, Elm East had another hurdle, this time 3M Rockland wanted to pull off a Static Adhesives Explosion Proof Class 1 Project and gave Elm the limited plans 3 weeks before the shutdown. With a value just south of $200K and previously planned Shutdown work of close to $100k and only a week to do this work, Elm East had to pull off a not so normal work week. Andrew Sareault led a team of up to 8 guys to complete through the weekend. The assembled crew started with Jake and Matt prepping the shutdown to Andrew with his team which included 2 Piper Electricians Jeff Schrecke & Kyle Therrien, Jose, Keith, Alex, Luke Lagrant, Dave, Josh and Kev who took on the other planned shutdown work. Andrew, who put in a modest 89 hours and the Piper crew at 88 apiece, also had a 1st year, 1st week helper Aidan Wenckus who put in a 79-hour work week. Welcome to Elm and that’s a good way to gain a lot of respect as all of the guys respected and Aidan worked hard for it. This job came out fantastic and Andrew gave Mike S a statement this week saying- “I wouldn’t have been able to do this if it wasn’t for the Piper Crew, those guys were like a machine, unbelievable!”

Looking ahead, Fall & Winter of 2022 and into 2023… The schedule will not get much easier, but that is not a bad thing at all. Expect the crew to start a 5-week project in Stoughton, MA in September/ October. 8-week project at the MWRA in Marlborough upgrading the Fluoride and Soda Ash Systems. MWRA Pressure relief vaults will kick off in late September in Brighton and Medford, MA. Wayland, MA just approved more work at their Rt. 20 Pump Station and PLC SLC 5069 Migration at their main plant. Ken’s and 3M Rockland are always busy and Ben Haynes won well over a million worth of projects in Uxbridge, Andover and a few big ones at Ken’s Foods. Steve Cruz, who landed the Stoughton project, also landed a SCADA project in Holden and a Generator Project in Bellingham. Elm East is gaining steam in Primetals thanks to pull through work from Steve Plasse. H&V Walpole just sent a purchase order to Keith Saltmarsh for just south of a million dollars to replace their Medium Voltage Gear. Opportunities are now forming from the excellent work done at 3M.

Miscellaneous Notes

– Thank You to Elm Electrical Inc. for sponsoring a golf hole for the 8/19 Golf Tournament Mike Saltmarsh put together for Westfield Youth Hockey

– Elm East Appreciation Day is scheduled for 9/16 and instead of a cookout, the Eastern office is hosting an Elm East Golf Classic – 4 groups teeing off in a 2-man scramble format at Juniper Hills – Riverside Course in Northborough, MA. Jake Tompkins has been telling everyone how good he is so we will let you know where he finishes in the next newsletter. Thank you Deana for setting this up.