Article 517 Health Care Facilities / Essential Electrical Systems
- Thread starter PWRUP
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Is it a hospital, nursing home or limited care facility, or an "other" healthcare facility? The requirements are a little different.
If its a hospital, you don't have it quite right. The life safety and critical have to be kept separate. So they are in separate conduits and separate pull/junction boxes.
The equipment system could be ran with normal power, although keeping it separate is probably better.
For a nursing home, the equipment system and life safety branch must be kept separate, and there is no critical branch.
Then life safety and critical should be separate.
publicgood
Senior Member
- Location
- WI, USA
The kva of the system makes a difference as well.
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
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- EC
Not associated with patient care rooms either?
Non patient care areas or items associated with them (this is where essential items come in that are not actually in patient care areas)- are not covered by 517.
Business offices, record keeping, food service, housekeeping, laundry, are a few areas that don't necessarily need to comply with anything in art 517.
You need to read 517.32, all areas of a hospital would be required to comply with this section as well as the other branches of the Essential System whether they are in a patient care area or not.
Roger
kwired
Electron manager
- Location
- NE Nebraska
- Occupation
- EC
I maybe didn't state this correctly, but understand it the way you said it. Essential system can include things not in patient care areas, they are basically still essential to providing patient care.
Some of the thing I mentioned like food service, or laundry I suppose can be essential, but maybe are a lower priority then some other items when it comes to just how essential they are and which items one would cut power to first in an extreme situation where you had to make such decisions.
The Essential System is not just basically for providing patient care, the Life Safety Branch would be for everyone inside a hospital including the general public and employees.
The Critical Branch is more for Patients and hospital functions.
The Equipment Branch is what it says, and is more inline with article 702 systems.
Load shedding would be a design and local or state code consideration. During an interruption of Normal Power food service and laundry would need to continue to function for effective hospital operation however, if these services can be catered they could possibly be shed.
In short, Life Safety and Critical Branches are crash and burn systems, the Equipment Branch is optional to an extent.
Roger
If its connected to the essential electrical system (which normally means connected to an essential system transfer switch), then it has to follow the rules for the essential system.
However, if backup power is NOT required in areas like you mentioned, is possible to put those areas on their own ATS. Lets call it an "optional" ATS since its not required. Then yes, the standard NEC rules would apply instead of 517.
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