Industrial and inspections

dm9289

Industrial Maintenance Electrician
Location
Pennsylvania
Occupation
Industrial process repair/ maintenance Electrician
I have worked in manufacturing for about 40 years mainly 3 different places. I lived through many upgrades and never seen any inspection or 3rd party plan review. Is this normal? Are manufacturing facilities with an engineer on staff exempt?
 
Can't speak for every area, but in the times we've done any sort of major work (UPS replacement or building expansion, usually) at our offices, the drawings were all done, reviewed, and stamped by our design/build contractor's engineering consultant, which local inspectors all treated as 'good enough' after what was probably a cursory permit review on their part. The only exception was when we went to our local Caterpillar rep to add generator output breakers, where they drew it up and submitted to the city for thorough review and permitting. I think the inspector's view of it is essentially "The engineer drew 4x250Cu, the customer's there every day so they're gonna see it immediately if you try to cheat by substituting Al or 200, so there's really no need to bother unless we hear about something fishy."
 
Can't speak for every area, but in the times we've done any sort of major work (UPS replacement or building expansion, usually) at our offices, the drawings were all done, reviewed, and stamped by our design/build contractor's engineering consultant, which local inspectors all treated as 'good enough' after what was probably a cursory permit review on their part. The only exception was when we went to our local Caterpillar rep to add generator output breakers, where they drew it up and submitted to the city for thorough review and permitting. I think the inspector's view of it is essentially "The engineer drew 4x250Cu, the customer's there every day so they're gonna see it immediately if you try to cheat by substituting Al or 200, so there's really no need to bother unless we hear about something fishy."
Thanks for your input. I usually see quality drawings done by engineers but never inspectors.
 
Surprisingly unless it involves a new service, industrial inspections are rare here
Yeah that’s what I thought. Just did not know if in industrial if rules differ with engineering supervision.
 
Just did not know if in industrial if rules differ with engineering supervision.
The rules (aka NEC) are the same, but it's likely that inspectors can (more or less) trust the reputation engine to keep everyone in that space honest, while they go after the fly-by-night resi hacks.
 
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