Hi
I have a large size warehouse with sky lights all over
and suspended dimmable led lights
now I want design a system
where lights in the space dimm automaticaly when enough natural lighting is available
is it o.k to you if i used,
ceil. regular photo cells that cross-talk (thru l.volt wires) with a low voltage wall swith that is capable of dimming the lights
ALL BY LEVITON"
is there other brands doing that???
tanx
what AHJ is the under? about 1 in 3 building departments in calif don't enforce the
T24:2013 certification requirements........ yet.
that's probably going to change in the next few months... i suspect the CEC will take steps
to compel the certification to be enforced. if that happens, i'd expect building departments
to send out nice form letters requiring people who've done work that was not certified in the
last year, to please send in their certifications for that completed work. if it happens, it's not
going to be pretty.
so, you have sidelight, and skylight daylight harvesting. there are rules for calculating the zones,
and formulas and allowance, and when it's all said and done, it needs to be certified. if that is enforced.
my suggestion to you is to have a licensed EE produce drawings, you permit the job, install the system as
shown on the approved drawings, and have it certified, and get a final inspection. the main reason you want
an EE blessing the system, is to limit YOUR liability from installing a system that can't be certified.
this stuff is snarky expensive. i've got a itty bitty box in the back of my van with some bits and pieces,
that got missed on a job, and it's $2k worth of stuff, on a $10k job. a couple daylighting sensors, two
power packs that'll do 0-10v and line dimming, a 365 day timeclock, and three wattstopper dm100 motion sensors,
and a few other things..... well, not $2k, but 1,400 with tax.
i looked at a job in central california, that was a homebrew deal. try as i might, i couldn't find a way to
certify it as compliant. a $5k lighting upgrade to an existing nationwide restaurant chain. they put some
notes on an existing set of drawings, and permitted it. didn't want to spend the time and money to draw
a set of prints up.
the AHJ made them into a chew toy. first, no cert. i couldn't certify it cause no permit, and it was a bogus
install. owners panicked and threw $10k at it, buying a lighting control panel that wasn't listed.
then the AHJ said that the poorly drawn unengineered drawings threw the entire occupancy into a
requirement to comply with T24:2013. full compliance
the lighting package for that, not including labor to install it, is over $120k. it's been three months, and they
are still chewing over how to fix it.
wattstopper, lutron, and nLight all make systems to do what you are trying to do. nLight is the best i've seen,
and the most expensive.
you can't get a certification without a permitted set of drawings. so you need the following:
current C-10
approved drawings
electrical permit
completely installed system
proper set up or commissioning
certification of compliance of the install.
final inspection by AHJ
in that order.
and yeah, i have the certificate for blessing the install. there are not
that many of us around. send me a PM if you want more info.
my advice is not to bid your own design without an EE to give you a
stoploss. opening a permit you can't close sucks.
people are twitchy enough about it that i have an EE who wants me
to consult on a seven story in downtown LA, so there won't be any
problems with certification, at $165 an hour. no way i'm signing up
for that. i don't have errors and omissions insurance on design.
randy
