OK, I have exhausted my resources and am looking for opinions. This is the scenario. I am completing a small prime power generating station with natural gas generators. There is a dispute as to the classification around the in coming gas supply metering area. I asked the question weather or not it is class 1 Div 2 or not. The plant is in operation and you can usually smell gas in the area. It is most likely blow off from the pressure regulator. The engineers are saying that the area is unclassified. The CM (who works for the engineering firm) is saying it is. The issue is the cost of adding seals to the conduits where they come out of the ground. Back when the question was first asked, by my predecessor, it would have been easy. When I asked the question the conduit was installed, concrete encased and backfilled. Spacing is not adequate for seals. When I explained the difficulty and cost to add these seals now of course nobody wants to do it. My question is would you consider this a classified area? Here is a link to a picture so you can see what I am talking about. There is a 120V motorized gas valve (the termination box faces away from us in the pic) A flow meter, temperature meter and two pressure meters all of which will operate at 24V 4-20ma. The tall cylinder in the pic is a filter element that must be periodically changed. There is bypass piping so the plant would not have to be shut down. Thanks for any input.
BTW: This is an old picture. Now the area is complete so we would be starting over to add seals at this point.
BTW: This is an old picture. Now the area is complete so we would be starting over to add seals at this point.