Florida AHCA inspection

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woodduder

Senior Member
Location
West Central FL.
Long day with the AHCA inspection team. All went well except for one item and I didn't bring a code book home. In all of our tranformers we installed 3 single lugs which we drilled into the side of the transformer housing, ground away the painted surface and 1/4 x 20 bolted each lug seperatly. The inspector is telling us that this is not acceptable and that we must "per the NEC....bond all these lugs together" even though they are all 1/2" away from each other on the same metal surface. Assuming we have lugs rated for two conductors, he wants me to link them together or obtain a lug/bar so they will all be together. I always thought and have always installed seperate lugs with no problems ever. What do you guys think?
 
roger

roger

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Fl
Occupation
Retired Electrician
The inspector will not be able to provide you with back up to his statement but, by the time you fight him and win you could do as he wants and point out he is making up his own rules.

Roger
 
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woodduder

Senior Member
Location
West Central FL.
roger said:
The inspector will not be able to provide you with back up to his statement but, by the time you fight him and win you could do as he wants and point out he is making up his own rules.

Roger
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Ya, I figure I'll be doing it his way. I can't let a 4 hour rework job hold up the hospital inspect. I just want to know if I am right.
 
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macmikeman

Senior Member
Location
Planet macmikeman
He is confusing this with a code requirement that does not allow metal casing to serve as a path for "grounded" (neutral) conductors to be connected. See NEC 200.2 (B) in the 08.
 
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bphgravity

Senior Member
Location
Florida
I am the local AHJ electrical inspector for this Hospital (not the AHCA inspector). I can say without any hesitation the work performed by Randy's Company is top-notch. The electrical equipment rooms, generator wiring, imagining equipment, and LPS are a few of the most neat and workmanlike installations I have had the privilege to inspect. The grounding and bonding systems are without a doubt fully compliant with the NEC, NFPA 780, NFPA 99, and the construction document specifications.

Being the primary structural and MEP inspector for this building, I have seen first hand some of the "out-there" requirements AHCA have come up with during the construction process. A good example would be the 30-minute, 300 pound load test on the bathroom lavatories. (300 pounds of sand placed on top of the sink basin with a micrometer set on a tri-pod on the floor measuring the amount of sag over a 30 minute period.)

But when it comes to Hospitals here in Florida, AHCA is the ultimate AHJ and can keep the doors closed even after the Fire Marshal and Building Official have signed off on the building.
 
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woodduder

Senior Member
Location
West Central FL.
Update day 2 of AHCA inspect

Update day 2 of AHCA inspect

First of all I would like to thank Bryan Holland for his kind words, we try the best we can to produce high quality work.
The grounding/bonding got somewhat stranger today though.
I do not own a handbook but he is telling me that the handbook shows a picture of how to bond at a transformer and I will try to explain his request. He wants the equipment grouding conductor that we ran with the primary to be moved to the lower perforated frame/housing of the transformer and left in a single barrel lug as it currently is in. Then the equipment grounding coductor for the secondary and the bonding jumper to the neutral to be in a double barrel lug and bolted to the side wall of the housing (where they currently are). I asked why and he said that I cannot "per the NEC have the primary ground and the secondary ground terminated at the same location". I then explained that this metal on the bottom is bolted to the metal on the side so what difference does it make if the lug is here or there. His answer ...."the NEC handbook has a picture".
Again, we are not going to argue with AHCA, but I just needed to vent on this forum.
 
roger

roger

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Staff member
Location
Fl
Occupation
Retired Electrician
woodduder said:
First of all I would like to thank Bryan Holland for his kind words, we try the best we can to produce high quality work.
The grounding/bonding got somewhat stranger today though.
I do not own a handbook but he is telling me that the handbook shows a picture of how to bond at a transformer and I will try to explain his request.
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He should know the Handbook commentary is not code.

woodduder said:
He wants the equipment grouding conductor that we ran with the primary to be moved to the lower perforated frame/housing of the transformer and left in a single barrel lug as it currently is in. Then the equipment grounding coductor for the secondary and the bonding jumper to the neutral to be in a double barrel lug and bolted to the side wall of the housing (where they currently are). I asked why and he said that I cannot "per the NEC have the primary ground and the secondary ground terminated at the same location".
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He has no absolutely no clue as to what he his trying to inspect or enforce.

woodduder said:
I then explained that this metal on the bottom is bolted to the metal on the side so what difference does it make if the lug is here or there. His answer ...."the NEC handbook has a picture".
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He needs to read the following part of the NECH.

The commentary and supplementary materials in this handbook are not a part of the Code and do not constituteFormal Interpretations of the NFPA (which can be obtained only through requests processed by the responsible technical committees in accordance with the published procedures of the NFPA). The commentary and supplementary materials, therefore, solely reflect the personal opinions of the editor or other contributors and do not necessarily represent the official position of the NFPA or its technical committees.


woodduder said:
Again, we are not going to argue with AHCA, but I just needed to vent on this forum.
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Unfortunately this is your best bet because if you argue with him he'll pull rank (abuse his power) and punish you some way.

If you would like, you can tell him that this forum can help him in his understanding of the NEC, which he obviously has very little of at the present time.

Roger
 
D

DARUSA

Senior Member
Location
New York City
200.2 b

200.2 b

200.2 (B) Continuity. The continuity of a grounded conductor shall not depend on a connection to a metallic enclosure, raceway, or cable armor.
 
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woodduder

Senior Member
Location
West Central FL.
woodduder said:
One is our equipment ground that comes in with the primary feed.
One is our equipment ground that goes out with our secondary.
One is our jumper to the XO terminal.
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TO ADD TO THE ABOVE... the jumper from XO passes through the XO lug and continues on to the main grounding busbar/groundrods via pvc pipe underground.
 
don_resqcapt19

don_resqcapt19

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Illinois
Occupation
retired electrician
Randy,
It looks good to me, but I did not have enough information in your original post to answer the question. As I said it looks good to me and is a very common installation, but there is no provision in the NEC that actually permits the metal transformer enclosure to be used as an EGC. The portion of the enclosure between the termination point of the system bonding jumper/grounding electrode conductor and the secondary side EGC is being used as the EGC.
 
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