Humber College has four transformers which are PCB filled or PCB contaminated. Government regulations now require that educational institutions must decontaminate all PCB equipment or remove for destruction by 2009. Giffels was retained to specify four replacement transformers, to plan the replacement process and to produce drawings and installation specifications to allow the project to be tendered. Contract administration and occasional site supervision is to be performed by Giffels.

Although the engineering was completed in April of 2006, two transformers are scheduled for replacement in 2007 and the remaining two transformers are to be changed in 2009. Transformer sizes range from 1500 kVA to 3000 kVA with primary voltages of 27.6 kV. Two transformers are outside and two are inside the buildings in vaults. A general contractor and also a PCB specialist contractor were both specified to ensure every precaution would be taken in the removal of the transformers, their transport offsite and their destruction shortly afterwards.

Design challenges included very tight tolerances for moving the transformers both horizontally by rollers and vertically by crane since mechanical equipment and cable trays which were added after the original installation are in close proximity to the transformers. Also, it was required that there be no changes to the cable and busway connection points, so that the new transformers were required to have matching critical dimensions and enclosure bolting patterns to the original units. The replacement had to be scheduled for minimum disruption to the College operations due to the power interruptions involved.

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