277V for shower downlight

[malachi constant]

Designing an apartment complex. The common area loads have 480V available which I will be using for corridor/stair lighting, elevators, HVAC equipment, etc. One of the amenities is a small toilet/locker room off a pool. Includes one shower. There will be a lensed downlight -near- the shower (not actually in the footprint). I would like to feed this at 277V.

I am running this by the greater electrical design community because I vaguely recall being told by a mentor a long time ago that something like this might be a bad idea. Actually, I think what I was told is having 277V light fixtures at lower heights (such as task lights) is a bad idea. I personally think it is a worse idea to mix voltages as someday someone changing a ballast is going to assume a wrong voltage and get a little scare.

Speaking of mixing voltages, I take it as a given that the architect will select at least a couple common area pendants that are only available in 120V. If mixing voltages is that bad I could keep certain areas (lobby, leasing office, common toilets, etc) at 120V and just do the corridor and stair lights at 277.

I think I'm better off doing as much lighting as possible at 277V, including the lensed near-the-shower light. Any thoughts?

 

[ericsherman37]

Designing an apartment complex. The common area loads have 480V available which I will be using for corridor/stair lighting, elevators, HVAC equipment, etc. One of the amenities is a small toilet/locker room off a pool. Includes one shower. There will be a lensed downlight -near- the shower (not actually in the footprint). I would like to feed this at 277V.

I am running this by the greater electrical design community because I vaguely recall being told by a mentor a long time ago that something like this might be a bad idea. Actually, I think what I was told is having 277V light fixtures at lower heights (such as task lights) is a bad idea. I personally think it is a worse idea to mix voltages as someday someone changing a ballast is going to assume a wrong voltage and get a little scare.

Speaking of mixing voltages, I take it as a given that the architect will select at least a couple common area pendants that are only available in 120V. If mixing voltages is that bad I could keep certain areas (lobby, leasing office, common toilets, etc) at 120V and just do the corridor and stair lights at 277.

I think I'm better off doing as much lighting as possible at 277V, including the lensed near-the-shower light. Any thoughts?

I think it depends on what kind of luminaire it is. 210.6(A) says that in a dwelling unit you can't have branch circuits exceeding 120 volts supplying the terminals of a luminaire. It doesn't specify anything about common areas in multifamily dwellings though. But 210.6(C) has some different allowances that might apply to you.

If the primary issue is worrying about whether the guy changing the ballasts is going to know what voltage it is, then that guy probably shouldn't be changing ballasts.

 

[ericsherman37]

Also, I don't know how big or small or grandiose your apartment complex is, but from my experience, having 277 lights in a dwelling (even in the common area) would seem pretty odd.

Every apartment complex I've worked in had 120V lighting in all the common areas.

 

[malachi constant]

A first for me too. This particular complex is 250+ units with 3 levels of enclosed parking, an indoor pool...and full service grocery store. The grocery requires 480V, so might as well make use of it elsewhere, right? The units are on their own separate 208V transformer, which is maxed out.

Thanks for the input.