Article 517 Question

[buffalo1]

I am doing an ambulatory surgery center with two operating rooms and a 7 bed recovery room. It has a standby generator to provide emergency power. in order to not change the generator, (it is maxed out), the architect removed the vacuum pump which provides suction to each OR and bedside at the seven recovery beds from the EM panel and put it on regular power. I questioned this as being a violation of 517-25(b)(3). The architect also removed the lights over the recovery room beds, (1 each bed) from EM power and put 3 lights in the whole room on EM in their place stating that was enough light. I see this as a violation also.
Am I correct in these assumptions or is there another part of the code that I am missing?

 

[caj1962]

Re: Article 517 Question

Buffalo
I agree with your assesments that these would in fact be code violations. The lighting solution could be handled by placing battery backup type fixtures in the operating rooms and the recovery areas as this would give you 90 minutes on battery. It would add to your maintenace of these areas by having to test and maintain those in accordance to NFPA guidelines.
As far the vacum pump it is addressed in the following code section as to how it is to be conected to the emergency system
517.34 Equipment System Connection to Alternate Power Source.
The equipment system shall be installed and connected to the alternate power source such that the equipment described in 517.34(A) is automatically restored to operation at appropriate time-lag intervals following the energizing of the emergency system. Its arrangement shall also provide for the subsequent connection of equipment described in 517.34(B). [NFPA 99, 3.4.2.2.3(b)]
Exception: For essential electrical systems under 150 kVA, deletion of the time-lag intervals feature for delayed automatic connection to the equipment system shall be permitted.
(A) Equipment for Delayed Automatic Connection. The following equipment shall be arranged for delayed automatic connection to the alternate power source.
(1) Central suction systems serving medical and surgical functions, including controls. Such suction systems shall be permitted on the critical branch.
Hope this helps. Your engineer is falling down hard on this one.