4160V gear placement

[Mike the Moose]

Hello all,
I have a situation I have never faced before. I have an existing mechanical room in a CA hospital, (OSHPD). In this room are 2 pumps and one chiller which have nothing to do with my situation. There is a broken chiller they want to replace and a 4160 gear that ONLY feeds the two chillers. The new chiller is 480V, so I need to install a 4160-480V transformer in this room.
I am being told that I cannot have a chiller in the same room as my 4160V gear and transformer. The gear and transformer are directly related to the chillers and nothing else.

Does anyone have any info if this is allowed or not? I am also referencing the plumbing and mechanical codes as well, but I can't navigate them as well as the NEC.

 

[ron]

You said the 4160V gear is already in the room with the (2) chillers. Why would the addition of a transformer make the replacement of one of the chillers make it a problem?

 

[iceworm]

...I am being told that I cannot have a chiller in the same room as my 4160V gear and transformer. ....

I'm generally a fan of asking whoever is doing the telling, "Why is that?"

Couple of other ideas:
110.34 Working space and guarding, over 1000V
450, Oil filled transformer Vaults, part II. part III

 

[dpcarls1598]

I have 13.8kv in the same room as boilers and associated mechanical equipment and the only issue was clearance. Shouldn’t be an issue.

 

[Jraef]

The only time I have seen restrictions like that they were self imposed, meaning it was an INTERNAL corporate policy. I worked for a while with a contractor that did soft starter retrofits of MV chillers at JC Penny stores nationwide. That was their policy (no MV gear in the room with the chillers), which was great for us because Trane and Carrier all built their 4160V chillers with the Soft Starters packaged in with the chiller skid. But because of JCPs policy, they had to break them out separately and that made my guy more competitive against them.

 

[Mike the Moose]

Thank you all. You confirmed what I believed to be true. I was provided that information by someone in a position of considerable authority, so even though I didn't believe it to be true I didn't want to be a fool and not research it.