Today’s high school graduates are encouraged to go to college; few are pushed toward the trades. They want white collar jobs with a fancy office and a six-figure income, and some will achieve that. What many do not realize is that with wages ranging between $90 and $140 per hour for a licensed electrician, that six-figure income can be achieved without four years of study and incurring a mountain of debt.

As a result, there are well-documented skilled construction labor shortages, fueling even higher wages and spurring delays in project completions. As an example, look no further than the mega semiconductor fabrication plants under construction in Arizona. Even with Federal support though CHIPS Act funding, plant openings have been delayed almost a year due to a lack of specialized labor.

To compensate, contractors are searching for solutions that are less labor intensive and require less skill to get the job done with fewer workers. That’s where Snake Tray can help. When it comes to the cabling aspect of any construction project, all Snake Tray products are specifically designed to ease and speed installation to save on labor.

 

How Snake Tray Products Address Construction Labor Shortages

Let’s assume that due to the skills shortage you are paying about $100/hour for skilled electricians to wire your next project.

• To field fabricate a 90° sweep elbow from a straight section of generic wire mesh basket tray on-site requires measuring, cutting, and grinding; a process that can take upwards of an hour for the most experienced electrician. The same 90° turn can be installed in under 5 minutes using Snake Tray’s Mega Snake without creating any waste. That’s a time savings of over 90% per turn! See the video here.

   

  The 801 Series Mega Snake offers premanufactured turns, tees, and crosses that require no on-site fabrication and quickly attach to each other with a UL Classified grounded splice connection kit. Built-in hanging hardware eliminates the need for struts and special tools, and the sections stack together for easy material handling and reduced shipping costs.

   

• This same principle applies to routing cable pathways around HVAC, plumbing, electrical, and fire suppression systems above drop ceilings, on walls, and under floors. Electricians can spend hours fabricating odd angle turns and elevations around each obstruction, or they can use Snake Tray hand bendable cable trays like the 101 Series (top), 201 Series, 401 Series, or 454 Series Universal Snake Tray (bottom) to make a turn or elevation change around the obstruction in seconds, no tools required – and fewer electricians, too!
   
  Sections join to each other in seconds with a simple connection that creates both mechanical and electrical bond. Built-in mounting rings allow for wall/ceiling suspension or floor attachment from a single point, and the trays nest together for easy material handling. Hand bendable Snake Tray is the best solution for renovation work.

 

• Electrifying a commercial space using traditional pipe and wire is a labor-intensive job. It requires a lot of expensive skilled electricians, generates lots of waste, and results in fixed power and connectivity access points that are difficult and expensive to move.

   

  Snake Tray’s Snake Bus is a modular, pre-wired power distribution system that offers the most flexibility in power distribution for underneath raised access floors. The ideal solution for workstations, call centers, and trading floors, Snake Bus tracks come in 4’ and 8’ sections that snap together in seconds for a highly efficient, IP addressable, 50 Amp, 3-phase power distribution system that a novice can install. Snake Bus’ innovative bus bar technology uses less copper than traditional wiring methods, saving up to 30% in materials while also speeding installation. Tap offs, called Snake Whips, deliver power to individual devices anywhere along the track and can be moved with a 10 second connection. The Snake Bus tracks themselves are also moveable and reusable.

 

• For utilities constructing massive solar arrays and battery storage systems to capture and store clean energy, Snake Tray offers the Solar Snake Max. An alternative to the messy, time-consuming, labor-intensive process of digging miles of trenches for high ampacity DC cables, Solar Snake Max is the world’s only free-air cable conveyance system designed to maximize energy harvest. This innovative above ground cable management solution makes it easy for installers to run up to 36 cables as large as 1250 kcmil to their interconnections using components that snap together while maintaining uniform separation for NEC compliance.

 

• For solar projects that call for organized conveyance of low voltage feeder and/or data cables strung on messenger wire, Snake Tray offers a wide range of cable hangers that are quick to install and make it easy to load, add, and replace cables when necessary. The Snake Loc String Cable Hanger (top) offers a squeeze lock mechanism and dual pockets to keep data and power lines separate. The String and Feeder Cable Hanger is designed to grow with expanding solar installations, providing eight pockets for cables up to 750 kcmil (middle). Our Torque Tube Cable Hanger (bottom) is designed to move cables with the sun, protecting cables from stress as the panels move up to 67 degrees daily tracking the sun from east to west.

The common denominator is that all Snake Tray cable conveyance and power distribution products are designed to speed installation and save on labor. This makes it possible for contractors to not only complete projects in less time, but with fewer skilled electricians, and even allow many tasks to be completed by apprentice-level workers who command much less than $100/hour, further reducing labor expenses.

 

Overcome Construction Labor Shortages with Better Solutions

Need to get more done with less…skilled labor…less time…less materials…less tools…less waste? Snake tray has the solutions to maximize the productivity of the labor you do have, and lowers the skills threshold needed to make finding qualified workers easier.

At $100 per hour for skilled labor, imagine the savings you can realize on your next project by slashing the time it takes to make every 90° turn from an hour to five minutes, or even ten seconds. That’s just one example of the savings you can achieve with Snake Tray. Hiring less-skilled workers who only need to know how to use a wrench is another. Contact us to learn more.