Turbine Hall Basement To Boiler House

The turbine hall basement at Wangi Power Station opens through to the boiler house basement, the two sub-floor levels connecting through a steel bulkhead arch. The basement floor is concrete, stained with the residues of decades of operating oils and condensate. Structural columns run in regular rows through the basement, supporting the floor of the working level above. Pipework runs along the underside of the upper floor: feed-water lines, steam returns, drain lines, control air. Most of the larger pipework has been removed for salvage; what remains is the smaller-gauge stuff that was not worth pulling out. Light comes down through grating openings in the upper floor and through ground-level windows along the perimeter walls.

The basement was the service level of the plant, where the major below-floor plant ran: condenser pumps, feedwater pumps, oil coolers, drain tanks. Operators and fitters moved between the turbine hall side and the boiler house side through openings like the one in this photograph. Wangi opened in 1958 and ran until A Station retired on 7 March 1985 and B Station closed on 31 October 1986. The generating equipment was removed between 1995 and 1997. The basement holds the structural arrangement of the working plant, with the largest plant items now absent.