What we learned re-cabling a 30,000 sq ft warehouse, twice.

We re-cabled a 30,000 square foot warehouse in 2024, and then again in 2025 after a roof leak destroyed half the runs. Same building, very different jobs.

First job: textbook UniFi rollout. Cat6A risers, two IDFs, a hot aisle that did not stay hot for long. Three weeks, on budget.

Second job: water-damaged drops, missing labels, half the patch panel was the wrong terminator. We changed three things from the first run: armoured conduit on the long runs, color-coded test tags every 50 feet, and a label printer on site.

The label printer alone saved us a full day. Every drop got a tag with the rack position, the patch port, and the date it was tested.

The conduit was overkill, but the client paid for it once and never thinks about it again, which is the right kind of overkill.

Networks built twice teach you more than networks built once. — Devon