Brewery Equipment and GFCI

[fastbub]

Hey there. This is my first post. Our brewery is expanding into a new space and we will be moving much of our production equipment into this space. This would include a bottling line and several portable pumps. Everything on the bottling line is 3 phase and we have some portable pumps that are 240 single phase. The outlets for the portable pumps to plug into are GFCI protected.

Right now none of the 3 phase machines on the bottling line ar GFCI protected. The line is a wet environment with water spraying and water on the floor where employees are working and operating the line.

Should these machines have GFCI for person protection? I have been looking at the NECcommercial installation handbook and searching online and can't seem to find something that definitively says yes or no on this.

What do the experts here think? Your help is very much appreciated because adding GFCI protection for the bottling line machinery will impact our budget for sure! First and foremost we just want to know what is safe. What is up to NEC standards and what will pass inspection.

Thanks in advance for your input!

 

[texie]

Hey there. This is my first post. Our brewery is expanding into a new space and we will be moving much of our production equipment into this space. This would include a bottling line and several portable pumps. Everything on the bottling line is 3 phase and we have some portable pumps that are 240 single phase. The outlets for the portable pumps to plug into are GFCI protected.

Right now none of the 3 phase machines on the bottling line ar GFCI protected. The line is a wet environment with water spraying and water on the floor where employees are working and operating the line.

Should these machines have GFCI for person protection? I have been looking at the NECcommercial installation handbook and searching online and can't seem to find something that definitively says yes or no on this.

What do the experts here think? Your help is very much appreciated because adding GFCI protection for the bottling line machinery will impact our budget for sure! First and foremost we just want to know what is safe. What is up to NEC standards and what will pass inspection.

Thanks in advance for your input!

You will find very little GFCI stuff available for this application as it is not a code requirement. Also I think most equipment of this type would have to be designed with GFCI in mind to prevent nuisance trips. Just employ good grounding and bonding practices and maintenance. I will say though that one of the few companies I know of that do GFCI stuff like this is Bender, Inc in Coatesville (right around the corner from you).