Shelter Industries Custom Modular Housing

Shelter Industries has supplied turnkey workforce housing for a mining camp located in an isolated section of northwestern British Columbia near Alaska.  The three-storey dormitory complex was designed and built for Eskay Creek, an underground gold mine wholly owned and operated by Homestake Canada Inc. Eskay Creek is considered one of Canada’s most profitable mines.

“Traditionally, workforce camps have used one or two-storey designs. The Eskay Creek residence is a unique application of modular design and construction,” says Harold Clifford, Shelter Industries’ President.

COLD WEATHER SPECIFICATIONS
The mountainous site, approximately 1000 kilometers north of Vancouver, is accessible by truck along a 60-kilometer gravel road from the nearest highway.

Shelter designed and manufactured the modular building to meet cold-weather and heavy-snow specifications: some winters have up to 55 feet of snow.  The truss roof, built in sections and finished in 26-gauge profiled metal, is a sharp 12/12 pitch.  There is extra insulation, amounting to R40 in the roof and R20 in the walls.  Heating is based on a combination of electricity, propane, and a glycol back up.

The dormitory-style building accommodates an additional 48 employees and features washroom and laundry facilities on each storey.  The twelve large modules, or sections, built in Shelter’s Aldergrove factory, were craned onto a perimeter concrete foundation.  Installation and commissioning on site took only about five weeks.

WORKFORCE CAMP EXPERIENCE
The new addition is an expansion of existing residential facilities, and will serve for the life of the mine, an additional six or seven years.  The housing complex can then be easily moved to another mine site.

Shelter management’s extensive experience in workforce housing dates from the 1960s.  The company has produced camps for nearly every industry: oil and gas, mining, forestry, construction and pipelines.  In addition, Shelter has produced a complete range of worksite buildings, such as kitchens and diners, washrooms, laundry rooms, dormitories and houses.  Shelter buildings arrive with completely finished turnkey facilities.