How To Make Prefab MEP Modules For Hospitals
Emergency services like hospitals play an indispensable role in modern life. As a result, it’s essential for their drawings and constructions, especially MEP system designs, to remain nearly flawless. Creating prefab MEP modules for hospitals comes with several advantages. One of these advantages is that each facility will feature a consistent layout wherever builders apply them throughout the medical facility. As a result, this feature will enable ease of maintenance and more effortless service functioning.
What The Prefab MEP Modules for Hospitals Consist Of
MEP modules generally involve integrated systems of cable trays, pipes, steel frames, and ventilation ducts. Examples of these modules can be corridors, bathroom pods, risers, and walls. The module lengths can fall anywhere between 6 and 12 meters.
To accurately draw the MEP modules, the contractor needs to coordinate the services, determine the correct way of linking the modules and calculate the steel beam’s weight & size for frame mounting.
Another climacteric point is that builders fabricate MEP modules in a factory/workshop located off the job location and transport them to the construction site for fitting. The components used for the installation task include the tower cranes, duct lifters, and chain blocks.
A ceiling/riser corridor prefab module features MEP services fabricated in a workshop. The needed “plug & play” techs with ductwork, cables, and pipework are fixed in the MEP modules and mounted beneath the floor or ceiling in service risers or plant spaces. Electrical wires and pipework systems are also pre-fabricated in the workshop. Builders then transport them to the job location and fix them to the mains.
Using BIM tech to install MEP modules reduces the service rework and re-design, helps to identify clashes, and helps make modifications early enough or quickly. Pre-fabricated coordinated drawings, including supporting corners, flanges, and frames, are also named MEP shop drawings. They play an indispensable role in creating MEP modules.
After completing the MEP shop sketches, builders use a template/jig to check the module alignments. Shrink tarpaulin/wrap can help to cover the modules and ensure they are safe from weather effects. Castor wheels can also help to carry the modules to the job location for fixation. At the project location, forklifts, pallet jacks, and scissor lifts elevate the modules and fix them in the correct position.
Considerations For Seamless Pre-fabrication Process
Consulting MEP Specialists & Contractors Early
It becomes easy to optimize service distribution if the MEP specialist & contractors correlate the MEP services in the first stages of the process. Contracts can enhance the work quality and minimize materials wasted on the project location by using BIM.
Project/Site Management
Arrangement for lifting equipment and delivery paths for pre-fabricated MEP modules must be early enough because the modules are likely to be bulky/heavy. Calculating the right module weight and transport time can enhance quicker fixation and eliminate inefficiencies that are likely to be experienced in project management.
Maintenance, Renovation & Replacement
It’s pivotal to consider placing space & valves around the MEP modules for maintenance requirements. Also, it’s vital to include them in the pre-fabrication sketches.
Code & Regulation Compliance
The responsible task stakeholders should ensure that the prefab MEP module installation complies with the local codes & regulations applicable to each system.
It becomes easy to create integrated workflows if the fabrication utilizes BIM technology. In short, prefabricated construction BIM plays an indispensable role in healthcare buildings. Specifically for hospitals, there is an increasing interest in using bathroom pods for pre-fabrication approaches because of their ability to encourage substantial cost savings.
Pre-fabrication like the headwall position, MEP system routing, and interstitial space layouts can affect the MEP module design. With the several features entailed, it’s indispensable to the MEP modules, mainly the bathroom pods.
In case you have architectural, structural, and MEP design requirements, feel free to contact us. We provide you with the full permit set design + T24.