Aircraft hanger & commercial garage

[tonyi]

A couple of days ago a friend who manages an airport showed me a project in one of the larger hangers they embarked on since I last saw the place 4 months ago.

One corner has been turned into a machine shop/rebuild area with milling machine, welder, etc (no walls/ceiling to seperate it from the aircraft). They've started to take in work rebuilding engines to keep the local aircraft mechanic busy.

There's no service pits and electrical gear all seems to be above 18", plenty of ventilation, so the classification aspects of the area looked OK so far. However I did see someone had strung a bunch of Romex around (not good) to wire up the shop area and I didn't see any GFCI's on the shop recepticals or panel serving that area.

I'm tending to think this kind of situation is pretty close to "commercial garage" as well as being a hanger and there should be GFCI's in the engine rebuild area (as well as sleeving that Romex into Flex or EMT)

Thoughts?

 

[pierre]

Re: Aircraft hanger & commercial garage

Article 513 does not require the use of GFCI protected receptacles for designated work areas. Although in todays litigous society, I cannot see who would take the chance and not install them.
NM cable is limited in installation in Article 334, and I do not see a restriction to aircraft hangers, so look in Annex E for the building type as there are restrictions to the building type.

There may be local building code restrictions, look to see what may or maynot be permitted.

Pierre

 

[tonyi]

Re: Aircraft hanger & commercial garage

513.7(A) appears to be saying bare Romex isn't permitted - baring the exception.

The shop area is just open space in a corner of the hanger, so I don't think the exception can apply to allow the NM.

There is a small walled off bathroom and office on the other side of the hanger - I could see the NM being allowed there though.

Basically, is this sort of open machine shop area in a hanger enough to be called a commercial garage too? GFCI's would be mandated in that situation.