Commercial Kitchen GFCI

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Npstewart

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I've done a lot of restaurant / commercial kitchens over the years and never had this come up so I wanted to get some input.

I have a receptacle symbol that I use on my drawings for GFCI receptacles. Its basically a square with two lines instead of the typical circle with two lines. I use this symbol to indicate GFCI protection.

I have a commercial kitchen where I showed these receptacles as I always do but I just had an RFI come in and the EC is saying that the GFCI receptacles arent accessible to reset them and they asked if they could use a GFCI protected breaker. I replied indicating that it would be code compliant to use a GFCI protected circuit breaker. 30 minutes later, the GC sends everyone a change order for around $1500.

Any thoughts on this? I have literally designed hundreds and hundreds of restaurants all over the country and never had this come up at any point.

FYI; Nothing special about this equipment. Its just regular kitchen equipment like refrigerators, etc.
 
A couple code cycles ago the GFCI receptacle itself had become “readily accessible” meaning that you should just be able to walk up to it and reset it without moving anything out of its way. Hence why the EC is requesting the use of a GFCI breaker instead
 
mopowr steve said:
A couple code cycles ago the GFCI receptacle itself had become “readily accessible” meaning that you should just be able to walk up to it and reset it without moving anything out of its way. Hence why the EC is requesting the use of a GFCI breaker instead
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Do you know which code edition this changed? Im under the 2014 for this specific project.
 
mopowr steve said:
A couple code cycles ago the GFCI receptacle itself had become “readily accessible” meaning that you should just be able to walk up to it and reset it without moving anything out of its way. Hence why the EC is requesting the use of a GFCI breaker instead
Click to expand...
There's a lot of debate about "readily accessible." Install GFCIs in sink bases for dishwashers and inspectors allow it around here. Might have to move some cleaners and a plunger out of the way.

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Npstewart said:
Any thoughts on this? I have literally designed hundreds and hundreds of restaurants all over the country and never had this come up at any point.
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Just curious, what restaurants? That’s primarily what I do.

We use GFCI breakers as most inspectors no longer allow the gfci recep behind equipment, even if in our opinion it can easily be moved.


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brantmacga said:
Just curious, what restaurants? That’s primarily what I do.

We use GFCI breakers as most inspectors no longer allow the gfci recep behind equipment, even if in our opinion it can easily be moved.


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Click to expand...

I’m sorry I can’t list all of the restaurants over the years but it’s been a lot.


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Npstewart said:
I’m sorry I can’t list all of the restaurants over the years but it’s been a lot.


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Click to expand...

I figured if you’ve designed hundreds, and I’ve built hundreds, I may have seen your work.


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