Sustainable Growth Through the Use of Temporary Buildings in the Utilities Sector

Utilities are one of the sectors that sees the most active developments over time, with a strong focus on constant optimization and improvement of the available material base. At the same time, this line of work relies heavily on intricate knowledge of various temporary solutions that can help maintain a site over periods of emergency, as well as assist with expanding into new areas.

Temporary buildings have an established place in this field for a good reason, and there are many indicators that they are going to keep seeing even more attention in the near future. It’s important to understand the many viable use cases for them in this area, but also to familiarise oneself with the many potential pitfalls that can arise from the improper application of temporary buildings, and to know when the time is right to deploy them.

In reality, they’re a tool that can effectively resolve many situations, but their efficient use also relies on having a good partner that one can rely on, among other things. But above all, they can allow you to significantly optimise your activities in order to achieve a sustainable development model.

Easy Customization for Specialized Sites

If you’re setting up a new site that has more specialised needs, you can benefit greatly from the use of temporary buildings and their ease of customisation. Sometimes, you may have higher safety requirements if the work of your staff involves hazardous materials or a site that’s inherently dangerous for whatever reason, and if you need to get some work done in that area over a period of several weeks/months, it can be a hugely wasteful expense to invest into fully featured standard buildings.

While there are obviously some exceptions to this, you will not always be able to reuse those reinforced buildings for anything else, leaving you with a gap in your budget that you’re not getting back. What’s more, temporary buildings can be further customised to accommodate to unique temporary conditions. If you need to handle a larger volume of people passing through an area, this can sometimes be impossible to achieve by modifying a pre-existing building. But by simply placing the correct order for an appropriate temporary structure, you’ll be able to handle all types of special conditions that may arise.

Just make sure that you discuss these points with the company that’s handling the construction for you, as they may need extra time to prepare for your unique order. Other than that, make sure you keep them updated on the specifics of the situation as it develops – it’s not rare for work in the utilities sector to suddenly take a new turn, and a good business partner will understand that, but you need to make sure that communication is clear on your end.

Quick Deployment for Tight Deadline Situations

Another strong argument for the use of temporary buildings is in situations where you need to get something up and running very quickly, but you can’t accommodate the staff in any other way for the duration of the project. A set of temporary buildings can provide not only housing but other facilities too, possibly even turning into a completely self-contained unit that can operate for several weeks or months without interruption.

And the best part about a setup like this is that once you’re done, you can simply dismantle everything and move on to your next site. You don’t have to overinvest in a certain area, especially if your projects never foresaw you operating there for a prolonged period of time in the first place, but at the same time, if you’ve determined that the place may offer something else of viability during your stay there, you can easily return for a more permanent setup.

Indeed, certain designs can be completed in just a couple of weeks, with some taking a bit longer, but you should generally not have to wait more than a month for most standard types of structures. As we mentioned above, as long as you’re responsible in your communications with the company you’re working with, there should be no issues on that front. In fact, one of the main reasons many people choose to work with temporary building contractors in the first place is the scheduling versatility this affords them.

Various Designs Suitable for Emergency Response

In the event that something didn’t work out smoothly at one of your sites and you need to handle the situation as quickly as possible, you will need to provide proper facilities for the response teams. Depending on the severity of the case, you may need to remain there for several weeks to ensure that the facility is brought back to its standard operation completely, and this can be a huge drain on an organisation’s budget if the number of people involved in the recovery operations is large enough.

With temporary buildings, you should be able to have the basics set up in a relatively short time, allowing your teams to operate in more comfortable office environments, workshops, and other structures relevant to their current work. Temporary structures can easily be adapted to different purposes as well, giving you a lot of extra flexibility in how you’re approaching the situation. In case you need to change something in the middle of the operation, this shouldn’t be a problem if you’re using temporary structures as your main housing option.

We already mentioned that temporary buildings can be designed with increased safety, and that’s another important point to consider when dealing with emergency response situations. While you’ll still need to give the manufacturer sufficient advance warning and allow them to produce the structures to your specifications, you’ll be able to enjoy an extra layer of safety for yourself and your workers once the job is done. And you’ll be able to do it much faster compared to using traditional construction methods too, which will likely be a critical factor when dealing with a situation of this type.

Handling Rapid Growth with Ease

Usually, the work of a utilities company is planned in advance and it depends on various external factors like legislation and government relationships. However, there are cases where rapid periods of growth may occur spontaneously, catching the company unprepared and leaving them unable to deal with their increased demands adequately. This can cause a degraded relationship with customers, and in more extreme cases, infrastructure failure in case the demand goes beyond safe limits.

Having the ability to erect temporary structures at new sites in order to provide extra services to them during those periods of rapid growth is an invaluable asset, and something you’ll quickly come to appreciate the first time you need to deal with something of this sort. As long as you’ve chosen a partner that can respond to your needs quickly and adequately enough, it should not be a problem for you to keep up with the demands of your market and keep everyone as happy as possible.

Temporary buildings can also work great on pre-existing sites, not just new ones – you can support the work of some of your major facilities with smaller, more specialised ones until you’re able to integrate their services into the main workflow. This kind of flexibility is something that takes some experience in the industry to appreciate, but those who know how to manage the resources of their organisations more precisely should definitely see the benefits.

Important Considerations

We already touched on a few important points regarding working with temporary building companies above, and it’s a good idea to reiterate on some of them. First, communication is key in this field – the longer you take to reach out to your contractor to let them know that something has changed in the specifications, the less flexibility you’re going to have in your project, as they will take correspondingly long to get back to you with results.

It’s also a good idea to ask for specifications if you’re going to use the buildings for more specialised purposes, as you may occasionally need to know how certain parts of the structure are laid out internally. Most companies would be happy to provide you with full details about their products, so don’t hesitate to talk to them directly in case you’re confused about some aspect of your specific model. You can also get a lot of information alone from websites such as smart-space.co.uk who have extensive information about all of their building types for you to browse through. If you can’t find the information you need on their site, they also have a free advice line that you could try.

Remember, one of the main selling points of temporary structures is that they provide you with a lot of extra flexibility and simplify the work you’re doing, and experienced companies will go all the way to make that a reality.

The utilities sector can benefit immensely from the correct application of temporary structures, and while they’re not a universal solution to absolutely every problem in the field, they can address a surprisingly large number of situations with ease. The low cost of most offers on the market further makes them an attractive choice for those who want to optimise everything about their work – including their budget.

Overall, if you’re still not familiar with how temporary buildings work and what their manufacturers can do for you, this should be at the top of your priorities list if you’re serious about the future growth of your services.