What a Bangladeshi university laboratory needs in place before the equipment arrives
Power, water, drainage, extraction, floor loading, door widths and bench layout settled in the order they have to be settled, and the three that cannot be fixed cheaply once the room is finished.
Crates standing in a corridor because the room is not finished is the most common avoidable loss on a university laboratory project in Bangladesh. It costs storage, it costs warranty time, and it costs the goodwill of the estates team who now have a blocked corridor. Almost every case of it traces back to the same thing: the building work and the equipment order were run as two projects that never exchanged a drawing.
Settle these in this order
The sequence matters because each item depends on the one above it. Working out of order is how a department ends up moving a fume hood after the ductwork is in.
The final equipment list, with datasheets. Not the wish list. The list you are actually buying, with each item's footprint, height, gross weight, electrical load, water demand, drain requirement and heat rejection taken from the manufacturer's datasheet. Everything below derives from this document, and nothing below can be done without it.
The route in. Gate to room. Vehicle access, unloading point, lift capacity and internal lift dimensions, stair width and turns, corridor width, door opening with and without the door leaf removed. Measure the narrowest point on the whole route, not the door of the room.
Floor loading. Point loads from heavy machines and any rig that will be bolted down, checked against the slab, particularly on upper storeys of older buildings. This is a structural engineer's ten minute answer if asked early and an expensive problem if asked late.
Electrical supply. Total connected load with everything running, phases required, distribution board position and capacity, residual current protection, socket positions and heights, earth resistance measured rather than assumed, and what the room gets from the generator and from any stabiliser or uninterruptible supply.
Water and drainage. Supply points with pressure and flow, sumps or storage where rigs recirculate, trapped gullies, floor falls, and the route the discharge takes out of the building.
Extraction and ventilation. Fume hoods and local exhaust positions, duct routes and discharge point, and the make-up air path. A hood without make-up air does not work, whatever its face velocity says on paper.
Room cooling. Sized against equipment heat rejection plus occupancy, not occupancy alone. Refrigeration, thermal and electrical machine laboratories put a large load into the room.
Compressed air and gases. Compressor position, receiver, dryer, ring main and drops; cylinder store outside the room, with the manifold and the alarm decided at the same time.
Bench layout and circulation. Bench heights for sitting or standing work, aisle widths, sightlines from every station to the demonstrator, emergency stop positions, and two clear exit routes that do not pass a hazard.
Storage and data. Cupboards so the room is not the store, and network or data points where rigs report to a computer.
The three that cannot be fixed cheaply later
Everything on that list can be adjusted after handover except three things, and each of them has forced a department to install a plant in the wrong room.
Floor drainage. Cutting falls and gullies into a finished upper storey slab means breaking out concrete and finding a route down through the storey below. Decide the wet areas before the floor is laid.
Extraction duct routes. A duct has to leave the building somewhere, and that somewhere has to be away from air intakes and windows. Retrofitting a route through a finished building is disruptive and usually ends in a compromise that reduces the hood's performance.
Incoming electrical capacity. Adding sockets is easy. Upgrading the supply to the building, the sub-main or the distribution board is a utility conversation and a shutdown. Establish the total load early, and include the growth you already know is coming.
The week before delivery
A short list, confirmed in writing with the supplier and the estates team, prevents most delivery day problems.
Crate dimensions and gross weights confirmed against the measured route, including any crate that will not fit the lift.
Unloading arranged. Many campuses have no forklift and no loading dock, so a hydraulic pallet truck, ramps and labour have to be booked.
A lockable, dry, secure area available in case the room is not ready or delivery arrives ahead of the installation team.
The room finished and clean. Do not accept delivery into a room where painting, tiling or drilling is still happening; dust in a new instrument is a warranty argument nobody wins.
Services live and tested. Power energised and measured, water running, drains flowing, extraction commissioned. Installation engineers arriving to a dead room is the second most common cause of a return visit.
A named person on site who can sign, and a written record of any crate arriving damaged, photographed before it is opened.