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. Every new fixture needed power and data right where it stood. We dropped both from the ceiling in EMT power poles and mounted four-plug outlets on the pegboard displays, 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 concrete floor nobody wants to cut, there are two ways to get power to a fixture in the middle of the room. You cut the slab, or you come down from the ceiling. Coming down from the ceiling is faster, costs a lot less, and is easy to move when the layout changes again.

An EMT power pole:

• Protects the wires where carts, ladders and customers bump into it
• Carries power and low-voltage to the same spot, so the counter gets both
• Comes out clean if the fixtures move in the next remodel

Working off the store’s plan

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

That kind of planning is most of what makes tenant improvement electrical go smoothly. When the fixture crew, the data tech and the electrician all work off the same plan, nobody finds a display sitting on top of an outlet.

Outlets where the fixtures are

The four-plug outlets went right on the displays, at the height the staff can reach, instead of on a wall twenty feet away. On a busy parts counter, that keeps cords off the floor.

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