Commercial Kitchen

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wmeek

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Location
Texas
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Electrician
While 210-8 (B) States all kitchen rec 15A & 20A are to be gfci protected. what about commercial grade cooler and refrigerators, do they also need to gfci proteced

Thanks
 
Re: Commercial Kitchen

Thanks for your responce, but do you feel like putting a refrigerator on gfci is really a good idea. I would hate for the gfi to trip and spoil the contents. I guess that the receptacle should be gfi protected by way of gfi breaker, because it would be little bit easier to reset.
 
Re: Commercial Kitchen

Originally posted by wmeek:
do you feel like putting a refrigerator on gfci is really a good idea.
It is not an idea, it is required :)

I would hate for the gfi to trip and spoil the contents.[/QB]
Two ways to go:

1)Comply with the NEC, the GFCI will most likely work fine with no false trips, worst that will happen is some spoiled food.

2)Ignore the NEC, someone may get hurt or killed, and you may be in some real trouble.

This requirement went into the NEC supposedly because of some electrocutions in commercial kitchens.
 
Re: Commercial Kitchen

I agree IWIRE, Saftey is way more important than the contents in a cooler or refigerator. I will defentiley add gfci breaker on all of the circuits in the kitchen that will be behind the larger Coolers and refrigerators and GFCI receptacles for the ones that are readily acceptable. Thanks everyone for all your replys.
 
Re: Commercial Kitchen

Originally posted by iwire:
This requirement went into the NEC supposedly because of some electrocutions in commercial kitchens.
I would be interested in knowing if these were accessible receptacles that were used for hand held equipment, or if they were electrocuted by a faulty piece of equipment that was plugged into an inaccessible receptacle.

I work in a lot of commercial kitchens and wonder, if the latter, why the requirement is limited to 120V. These kitchens are loaded with both 120 and 208 fridges, freezers, and micros (etc). It doesn't take long for the cords to find there way from 'less than desirable' to 'downright dangerous'. However, I have yet to see only the EGC lost in one of these cords.
 
Re: Commercial Kitchen

Originally posted by dereckbc:
RYAN618, what do you think?
LOL!!!

I think you'd better put the GFCI's in.

The NFPA doesn't care about food spoilage, it cares about dead bodies. Ask the proponant of the requirement, and he will show you the coronor's report of the dead body that got this provision in the code.

What do I think? I think I'm in the middle of a court case as the AHJ that required GFCI protection in a coomercial kitchen. The GFCI's tripped and food spoiled. That is unfornate, but what if I were in court because I DIDN'T require it and somebody got killed?

Do yourself a favor and install the GFCI's. :)
 
Re: Commercial Kitchen

A restaurant could alarm someone through their security system anytime the refridgerator circuit went down.

This technology is used in MRI installations to call up to three people (staff) if the cooling system trips, it can simply use a relay and the dialer to notify the monitoring company.

Roger
 
Re: Commercial Kitchen

I do a lot of super market work, other than a few self contained coolers for beverages by the registers every cooler is monitored for temp (high or low) and puts an alarm in the mangers office along with dialing out to the main office.

Around Thanksgiving they put freezer trailers outside for turkeys, we put a temp probe in those too.
 
Re: Commercial Kitchen

Just tell the owner to buy only "hard wired" equipment". GFCI protection is not required for hard wired equipment.
Don
 
Re: Commercial Kitchen

Section 210.8(B)(3) requires GFCI protection for all "kitchens" I just purchased a new chest freezer, it's a "Heavy Duty Commercial" type (that's just sales, I got it at Sears for $200)

The instructions specifically state "do not plug this appliance into a GFCI circuit"

Now what? If I use this in a commercial kitchen, do I follow 210.8(B)(3) or 110.3(B)?
 
Re: Commercial Kitchen

Tom,
I really doubt that the instruction that says "do not connect to a GFCI circuit" is an instruction that is an actual part of the listing an labeling. It is more likely that that is a "manufacturer's instruction. 110.3(B) does not require compliance with manufacturer's instructions.
Don
 
Re: Commercial Kitchen

They simply wanted to avoid you loosing food over a tripped gfci.I have seen this often with people putting that extra frig in the garage.They could easily lose hundreds of dollars in food over something like a tripped gfci and the frig being off might take days before being noticed.Best advice is a dedicated 20 amp single,no gfci
 
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