Low Voltage
In the senior living real estate development word, "low voltage" is a catch-all term to describe a building's electrical devices or systems that are powered by electricity at a lower voltage than typical building systems like lights, electrical outlets, HVAC, appliances, etc. Those typical building systems are powered by either 120 or 240 volts, which can give you a good shock. Therefor the electrical wiring to power those systems has to be permitted, installed by a licensed electrician and inspected by the city. Low voltage systems run on 50 volts or less, which will not shock you, and the wiring for those systems don't need a permit, licensed installer or inspection.
That expatiation is probably not too helpful. And who cares anyways - why is low voltage even a special category? The best way to explain senior living low voltage systems are to provide examples such as: nurse call, access control, surveillance cameras, and point of sale systems. These systems are usually not installed by your general contractor, and the developer has to contract for their installation directly with a variety of different vendors. Unfortunate, there is no one stop shop for low voltage. The functionality and expansiveness of these systems can vary greatly depending on the building and how the building operator wants to run the facility. But most importantly, you can't run a senior living community without these low voltage systems. And they can get really expensive. That's why you should care about and manage these systems carefully.
Below are the most common low voltage systems in a senior living community.
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Nurse Call
Nurse call stations are devises in remote areas, such as bathrooms, where a resident can call a staff member for assistance if they need it. If a resident falls, is having chest pains, or needs assistance for any reason, they can go to the nurse call station, which is usually activated with a pull cord, and call for help.
With the advancement of technology, some senior living communities offer residents wearable devises (something like a Fitbit) that residents can use as a nurse call devise where ever they are. Remember the famous commercial from the early 2000s where an elderly woman is laying on the bathroom floor next to her tipped over walker and speaks into a pendant around he neck and says "I've fallen and I can't get up!" These new wearables are basically the same system, but a lot cooler.
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Wander Management
Wander management is largely used for memory care residents. You can put a wearable devise on a resident's wrist, and track where they are in the facility. If they somehow get out of the controlled memory care building or courtyard, the wander management devise will alert the staff. Memory care residents wandering out of a controlled area is unfortunately something that happens with more frequency than most people would expect.
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Hearing Aid Loop
Hearing aid loops enhance hearing aids, allowing the hearing aid wearer to hear a microphoned speaker/presenter or TV more clearly by cutting out background noise and amplifying what is being spoken into a microphone or coming out of the TV. Hearing aids on their own pick up all outside noise, including background noise, which can muffle a person speaking, a movie being played on a television, or a music performer singing a song. These hearing aid loops really bring clarity and understanding to the residents who use hearing aids.
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Point of Sale
Not all goods and services provided in a senior living community are included with the rent. Some extras are sold at an additional cost to the residents and guests and the operator needs a point of sale system to sell those goods and services. Traditionally a point of sale system was a cash register and a means to be able to take credit cards, but as technology advances, these POS systems become simpler to use, more capable, and more compact.
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Access Control
Access control is the system that automatically locks and unlocks designated doors for people if they have a credential such as an access card, FOB, or know the code for a key pad. The most important and obvious doors that need access control in a senior living community are in memory care. You don't want your memory care residents to leave the facility unescorted, and you don't want unauthorized people entering your memory care facility. Beyond memory care, access control is used for general security on exterior doors. Access control is a tough system to get right as I explain in the last paragraph of this page.
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Audio-Visual
This component of low voltage is probably most familiar to everyone. This includes: TVs, theater sound systems, public announcement (PA) systems, speakers, and digital display boards.
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Cabling
Cable wiring is the backbone of all low voltage systems. This cabling is sometimes called Ethernet or CAT6 cable and can easily be identified as a blue colored (usually) cable that is a little bigger than 1/4" thick. This cable transmits data, via the very thin copper wires within the cable, to and from phones, computers, TVs, etc. It can even transmit power to lights, access control devices, surveillance cameras, Wireless Access Points, and any devise that can function on 50 volts or less. Closely associated with the cabling are racks, switches, and routers stored in the building's IT closet that distribute the data to all the individual cables. Fiber optic cable is slowly becoming a replacement for Ethernet cable because of its faster data transmission speed.
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An occasional problem you might have to deal with as a development manager is that one of your GC's subcontractors damages the CAT6 wires after your low voltage contractor installed them. Usually, if a CAT6 cable is damaged, the whole run of that cable has to be replaced. And since the cabling contractor typically contracts with the owner or tenant directly, not as a sub under the GC, you as the development manager have to mediate between the GC and the cabling contractor to come up with a solution to replace the damaged cables, or make sure it doesn't happen in the first place.
Ensure you have a pre-installation meeting between your GC and cabling contractor. Tell them both that you are concerned about the GC's subs possibly damaging the cabling wires. The GC should take measures to help protect the wire by telling his subs to be mindful of it. Also, the cabling contractor should take measures to protect his wires. He needs to get his wires out of the way of subs doing their work. Below is a best practice you can recommend to help protect wires.
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Picture of cables coiled up into a j-box, susceptible to damage. The cabling contractor needs this extra cable coiled up in the box so that he has enough slack in the cable line to terminate the cable into the face plate that will eventually cover the j-box.
Damaged cable, nicked by a drywaller's router or saw. This whole run of cable has to be replaced. The drywaller initially covers all j-boxes with sheetrock, then cuts holes in the sheetrock where the j-boxes are located. This cutting sometimes damages cable that is coiled up in the j-box.
A solution to the above problem is for your low voltage contractor to run his cable through the j-box, with the slack in the cable line secured below the j-box, not coiled up in the box. This prevents the cable in the j-box from being nicked by the drywaller's router or saw.
Wireless Access Points (WAPs)
The name largely explains what these devices do. WAPs emit WiFi over an area so that residents, staff and guests can tap into the internet, without a cable, on their laptop, phone or tablet. This isn't only a convenience for users, but many staff members walk around the community, managing the care of residents on tablets. WAPs enable the tablets that enable that care.
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Surveillance Cameras
Surveillance cameras are largely used for security and to oversee remote areas to monitor residents, staff and visitors. Ironically, surveillance cameras might actually prove to be an liability to an operator and therefor, a building owner. With the complexity and difficulty of running a senior living community, there are bound to be inadvertent mistakes that the staff makes. Those mistakes being captured on camera for a disgruntled family member (or their lawyer) to demand to see, could be damming to the operator. Keep this in mind when placing security cameras. They should be focused on security, not monitoring operations.
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Sealing Fire Wall Penetrations
All penetrations through a fire wall have to be properly sealed with fire caulk, to include low voltage cables. Also, if a bundle of low voltage cables penetrating a fire wall is large, it will typically need a specialized sleeve to penetrate the wall. Low voltage contractors are notorious for not properly sealing their fire wall penetrations. And since many times the low voltage contractor contracts direct with the owner, as opposed to with the general contractor, the owner does not have the GC to oversee the low voltage contractor to ensure he seals his penetrations properly. This puts the extra onus of oversight on the development manager. As the development manager, make sure you emphasis to your low voltage contractor the importance of properly sealing his penetrations. You don't want to fail a fire marshal or licensing inspection because too many low voltage cables were not sealed properly.
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Establishing Phone/Internet/Cable TV Service to the Building
You are going to need phone, internet, and cable TV service run to the building for resident and operations use. I usually let the operator pick this service provider (e.g., AT&T, Verizon, Spectrum). Or if your operator is indifferent or doesn't want to make that decision, ask your low voltage contractor to find out who all the service providers are in the area, get their pricing and service offering, and make a recommendation to you. If your community is large, you will be brining hundreds of new customers to a service provider so they will want to compete for your business.
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Low Voltage Responsibility List
Managing who should provide what for the different low voltage systems is a big harry ball of confusion. Different vendors/contractors provide different portions of a low voltage system. You want to make sure that you, as the developer, and all the vendors/contractors that touch low voltage are crystal clear in who is providing what. You don't want any overlap or doubling up of scope of work and price. Equally as important, you want to make sure there are no gaps in who is providing what, otherwise the systems wont work.
The best way to manage the variety of low voltage systems is to create a low voltage responsibility list or matrix. To provide you an example of just how complex properly installing just one low voltage system can be, lets do a deep dive into access control. The architect will develop the building plans and those plans will show all the doors in the building. Next, the senior living community operator needs to advise on what doors should receive access control. The architect then decides what type of access control devise goes on each door and puts that into the building plans. The general contractor usually provides the electrified access control door hardware. Your low voltage cabling contractor runs all the wires to the access control devise to control the door. And finally, another contractor provides the card/FOB reader or keypad at the door, and the head-end system that monitors and controls the full access control system. That is five different parties providing input, materials and services for access control. The only way to effective manage who is providing what is to create a responsibility list and share it with all parties who touch access control. Include this list as an exhibit to their contracts and review it in detail with all parties.
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