Clearing the Room 

Asbestos isn’t something you muck around with. We called in PCB Contractors and Morgan Environmental, crews we’ve worked with before and trust. They came in, tested everything, sealed it up, and carefully stripped the sheeting out. Once they gave us the all-clear, we had a blank canvas to start the real work. 

Jobs like this are never just about wiring. Half the battle is lining up the right people at the right time. Without that clearance work, nothing else would have gone ahead. 

Rolling In the New Gear 

With the ceiling gone and the room signed off, we got to do what we do best. We brought in brand-new switchboards and turned the old, underused space into a proper switch room. Instead of chasing circuits all over the building, everything would now be in one spot. That makes fault-finding quicker, upgrades easier, and gives Coles a safer, cleaner setup. 

We ran in new feeds, hooked them into the store’s systems, and prepped the boards to take over from the old scattered ones. Every step had to be planned. You can’t just shut down power in a supermarket without causing chaos. 

Keeping the Store Alive 

The biggest challenge was keeping the place running while we worked. The lights, fridges, and registers couldn’t stop, not even for a few minutes. That meant staging shutdowns late at night or during quiet times, lining up each step with store management, and making sure backups were always in place. 

To shoppers, nothing looked different. They kept shopping, scanning, and paying without a hiccup. But behind the scenes, it was like a choreographed dance. Deliveries timed to the minute, gear moved through narrow service corridors, crews working in shifts to keep out of sight. 

It’s the part of the job people don’t see: the planning that makes the work invisible. 

A Few Hiccups 

Every project throws a few curveballs. The asbestos was the first. Sorted with the right people on board. Access was another. Moving big boards through a live store isn’t simple when you’re sharing lifts with trolleys and staff. We broke deliveries into smaller runs and sequenced them so nothing jammed up. 

And of course, the clock was always ticking. No one wants a supermarket half-powered for long, so we cut the job into chunks, tested each stage, and only moved forward once everything was stable. 

What We Left Behind 

By the end, the store had a new switch room running the show. Everything’s central, cleaner, and safer. Maintenance crews won’t have to waste time chasing boards across the building anymore. Coles got what they needed: a modern electrical backbone, finished without shutting the doors or slowing the checkout queues. 

From our side, the win was simple: we did the upgrade in a live environment without anyone noticing. That’s the kind of job that proves planning and teamwork matter just as much as tools and cable. 

Client Response 

The Coles team were happy with how the project played out. They appreciated that the doors never had to shut and the checkouts never slowed down. What could have been a disruptive job turned into a smooth upgrade that most people in the store didn’t even notice was happening. 

From their perspective, having one central switch room makes day-to-day maintenance easier, and the store’s future upgrades will be simpler too. For us, it was good to hear that the planning and behind-the-scenes effort showed through in the final result.