Park Meadows Black Friday Blackout
Emergency Service on a Day Off
The Friday after Thanksgiving is affectionately called Black Friday. It is the busiest shopping day of the entire year, where even the slowest of economies pick up the pace and cater to every shopper’s desire. Many stores open early on Black Friday, as early as Midnight and some just open an hour or two earlier than usual.
Here at Electric Doctor, we were looking forward to a much needed 3 day weekend after a great Thanksgiving. We received a call around 8:45am. This particular Park Meadow’s store had set to open at 8:00am that morning, ready for a rush of shoppers and when they went to turn on the lights and open the doors to swarms of shoppers, they had a Black Friday Blackout.
The store’s mechanical and lighting systems are controlled remotely via an automation system to help lights from being left on and the store being over heated/cooled. There are two manual override buttons for the lighting system which allow several hours of on time before resuming normal operation. When the manger went to override the lighting… nothing… just emergency lights stayed on. We received the call around 8:45am after the on-call mall electrician was unable to determine the problem. Electric Doctor arrived on scene within an hour of the call at about 9:30am and began to diagnose the issue. Craig and Jim determined that the main lighting contactor for the entire store had failed.
The failure of the lighting contactor had then caused several other issues with the automation system. Being a holiday Friday, most electrical supply stores were closed and even those who would open did not have this particular contactor. This situation may have put an end to the store’s largest major shopping day but the docs swung into action. Craig and Jim found a way to bypass the contactor and have it used manually to control the lighting. After resetting the system and even taking the time to show the employees how to use the lighting over the weekend as a temporary solution, the store had the lights on, the blackout over and the doors were ready to open for eager shoppers by 10:30, within 2 hours of being called.
A few days later, the contactor was in and Electric Doctor installed the part during non-business hours and everything was back to normal. While the store did lose 2.5hours of shopping time, they know that it could have been quite a bit longer without the prompt response and creative solution. Prompt response and expert diagnosing helped to save thousands of dollars when they needed it most.
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