Electrical room with dry walls

[waelatallah]

Hi,

A client is asking to change the building design of an electrical room. Instead of having all concrete wall he is asking to have concrete for a height of up to 3 feet and after that to construct dry walls up to the ceiling.

There are no big transformers or gazes in the room. There are no chillers, boilers etc.

Do you see any inconvenience in this setup? The code would allow such a construction but from experience what do you think?

Thanks,

 

[iwire]

We do a lot of electrical rooms, some very large that are all drywall.

No problem at all, put some strut up. I like to toggle bolt the strut to the metal studs.

 

[kwired]

Hi,

A client is asking to change the building design of an electrical room. Instead of having all concrete wall he is asking to have concrete for a height of up to 3 feet and after that to construct dry walls up to the ceiling.

There are no big transformers or gazes in the room. There are no chillers, boilers etc.

Do you see any inconvenience in this setup? The code would allow such a construction but from experience what do you think?

Thanks,

See if you can get them to put up plywood behind the drywall - then you can attach items anywhere and know you are hitting something that will support it (within reasonable weight limits anyway). I have even seen this done in restrooms so that when the guys come to put in the stalls or other wall mounted equipment can easily fasten hardware anywhere on the wall.

 

[cowboyjwc]

We do a lot of electrical rooms, some very large that are all drywall.

No problem at all, put some strut up. I like to toggle bolt the strut to the metal studs.

Same here. Very rare I see them built any other way.

 

[cadpoint]

Regionally and usually larger work, exposed treated lumber is only on the telephone wall!

If you have a large application of panels try mounting some 18 gauge metal sheets say 8"x 5' or 10' at the panel
mounting height.

Noting your location, it would be easier all around to heat and cool a simple gypsum walled space then a combination
of gypsum on concrete or concrete block.

 

[kwired]

Noting your location, it would be easier all around to heat and cool a simple gypsum walled space then a combination
of gypsum on concrete or concrete block.

That is all in how you perceive it. Yes it will take longer to heat or cool a space that has some thermal mass items, but in the event of power loss or breakdown of HVAC, thermal mass helps maintain current temp longer than not having thermal mass.

 

[chrisjacob]

Dry wall construction

Dry wall construction

Well. In my opinion there is not problem in doing this but with some precautions should be taken. One of my friend also construct this type wall. He do above drop ceiling. If you want try this but again take some opinion.

 

[kwired]

Well. In my opinion there is not problem in doing this but with some precautions should be taken. One of my friend also construct this type wall. He do above drop ceiling. If you want try this but again take some opinion.

Can you give us examples of what precautions you are talking about. Drywall in mechanical rooms is not a rare thing to see here. About the only problem presented for electricians is making sure you find framing members for mounting heavier equipment, or like I mentioned in an earlier post, getting some backing behind the drywall so that you can attach items most anywhere after the drywall is up.