In regards to panic hardware required within 25 feet of work space of electrical equipment rated over 800 amps-NEC 110.26(C)(3): Do all egress doors within 25 feet of work space need to be equipped with panic hardware even if the door does not lead directly from an electrical room. Another words, if there is panic hardware on the door leading out of the electrical room into an office and the door leading from the office to the hall was less than 25 feet from the work space would it need panic hardware as well even though there is no electrical equipment in the office? The picture on page 39 of the Analysis of Changes to the 2014 NEC seems to imply this requirement.
egress doors within 25 feet of work
- Thread starter wyboy
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Carultch
Senior Member
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- Massachusetts
Multiple exit doors in series? Such as an E-room exit door, and the next room's exit door 20 ft away.
Or multiple exit doors in parallel? Alternative exits from the same E-room, when only one is required by the NEC.
I have this question for both scenarios as well.
Or multiple exit doors in parallel? Alternative exits from the same E-room, when only one is required by the NEC.
I have this question for both scenarios as well.
- Location
- Lockport, IL
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- Semi-Retired Electrical Engineer
The answer comes from the same sentence for both cases. The relevant issue is whether the door is ". . . intended for entrance to and egress from the working space. . . ." The door leading from the office to somewhere else in the building is intended for entrance and egress from the office, not the working space. So it does not need to open outwards or have panic hardware. Once a person leaves the electric room and is standing in the office, he or she is no longer in danger from whatever is happening to the electrical equipment. Indeed, if the room next door does not even have another door, so that when the person leaves the electric room and enters that other room they have nowhere else to go, they are still safe, and can just wait there until someone comes to get them.
On the other hand, the two doors that both lead away from the electric room must both open outwards and have panic hardware, because both are intended for entrance to and egress from the working space.
Hmm....I would have said the opposite - you have to walk through the office to get to the working space, so I would have said the panic hardware is required.
Now I'm not sure one way or the other.
Carultch
Senior Member
- Location
- Massachusetts
So because the office interior through which you'd have to walk to get to the electrical room, is not in the work space. Thus the exit door from the office does not need panic hardware, because the first door out of the electrical room already has it, and already protects you once you get through it. Even if the office door is still less than 25 ft from the electrical equipment. That's your interpretation.
Now to extend the idea on parallel exits from the workspace, when only one is required. What if exit A leads out to the hallway, and "exit B" just leads in to a closet, and is not intended to be used as an exit from the workspace?
Seriously? A closet door would be an exit?
- Location
- Lockport, IL
- Occupation
- Semi-Retired Electrical Engineer
Please note that the code says nothing about the worker being able to walk away from the working space and make it all the way outside the building. The safety aspect of this rule is limited to getting away from the dangerous condition that is happening at the live electrical equipment. The presumption is that if you make it through a door and are now in another room, you are safe. You might be trapped there, until someone manages to turn off the equipment and thus eliminating the unsafe condition. But it does not matter if you get bored waiting for that to happen. You are clear of the equipment; that is all that matters.
Carultch
Senior Member
- Location
- Massachusetts
Of course it really isn't. But if you are in a panic and don't remember/don't know it is a closet, you might mistake it for an exit.
- Location
- Placerville, CA, USA
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- Retired PV System Designer
And putting a panic bar on it would make such a mistake far more likely IMHO. :angel:
- Location
- Lockport, IL
- Occupation
- Semi-Retired Electrical Engineer
But not putting a panic bar on it would create a far more potentially dangerous situation. I suspect that a significant percentage of the time a person is working on a live board with the covers off it will be in a room you had not entered before. So if something in the board starts arcing and sparking, You are going to want to head for the nearest door, and that might not be the door you used to enter the room. So that door had better not slow down your progress out of the working space by not having panic hardware, or it may well cause the worker to panic. In any event, the code does not make exceptions for the nature of what is on the other side of the door. If it leads away from the working space and is within 25 feet, then it must open outwards and have panic hardware.
- Location
- Placerville, CA, USA
- Occupation
- Retired PV System Designer
Not entirely a facetious hypothetical:
Suppose that you have two rooms containing electrical equipment and the only access to room B is through room A. Room A in turn has access to a corridor or directly outside.
The door between them would then have to open in both directions and have panic bars on both sides.
In some cases the inward versus outward opening of a door is defined by the overall progression toward the outside of the building rather than depending on which side of the door you happen to be standing on. Is this such a case? Reasonable people may differ in opinion on that.
- Location
- Illinois
- Occupation
- retired electrician
I don't understand...the closet door does not meet the criteria that you set in post 3, so there would be no code reason to provide panic hardware for that door.
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