Egress/Exits, Seperate Circuit? (Iowa)

[jay j]

First off I don't post much here as you can tell but I do frequent the site and enjoy all the input, what a great resource!

We work mostly west of the Mississippi and I don't recall seeing this before.

Doing a project in Iowa and within the city review letter they have the following comment:

Per local fire code adoption, all emergency lights and exit signs shall be installed on dedicated circuits. This circuit shall be provided with a breaker lock.

This is a small 50 unit apartment project that we were planning on running a circuit down the corridor to pick up the corridor general lighting, bug eyes and exit signs. Circuits pops for whatever reason and we flip to battery, to me this makes the most sense. The way they are asking us to wire it if the general lighting circuit pops we are in the dark, will go to battery upon loss of building power. We will do whatever they want but it seems a little counter intuitive to me. The building is just coming out of the ground so at least its not much of a change.

I dug through the city code to find what they are referring to but no go for a citation, next step is to call the plan reviewer.

According to the IBC chapter 1011.5.3 (exit signs) they tell us "duration of not less than 90 minutes in case of primary power loss".

IBC 1006.3 (egress) "normally provided by the premises' electrical supply"

 

[jay j]

Forgot to add, how does one get around NEC 700.17(1)?


700.17 Branch Circuits for Emergency Lighting. Branch
circuits that supply emergency lighting shall be installed to
provide service from a source complying with 700.12 when
the normal supply for lighting is interrupted. Such installa*
tions shall provide either of the following:

(1) An emergency lighting supply, independent of the nor*
mal lighting supply, with provisions for automatically
transferring the emergency lights upon the event
of failure of the normal lighting branch circuit.

I suppose one could use a UL 924 relay and some kind of sensing circuit to monitor the corridor lighting circuit and have that trip the dedicated egress circuit to fire the battery packs!

 

[gadfly56]

Forgot to add, how does one get around NEC 700.17(1)?


700.17 Branch Circuits for Emergency Lighting. Branch
circuits that supply emergency lighting shall be installed to
provide service from a source complying with 700.12 when
the normal supply for lighting is interrupted. Such installa*
tions shall provide either of the following:

(1) An emergency lighting supply, independent of the nor*
mal lighting supply, with provisions for automatically
transferring the emergency lights upon the event
of failure of the normal lighting branch circuit.

I suppose one could use a UL 924 relay and some kind of sensing circuit to monitor the corridor lighting circuit and have that trip the dedicated egress circuit to fire the battery packs!

These are the problems that arise when local jurisdictions decide to willy-nilly amend national codes. If the rule is administrative, maybe you can tactfully suggest to the offending parties er, I mean, local jurisdiction that they repeal it.

 

[jay j]

That is what I have done so far, I was nice about it. I always look at it as learning experience, most of the time I think we all are trying to work towards a common goal. Except for maybe what seems to be 15 different energy codes and or programs!

 

[jay j]

Update

Update

Just got word from the Building Inspector and Fire Marshal, they are accepting to let us install as we originally intended (emergency lighting circuited with the room general lighting circuit).

i have to wonder if they will be updating their code, I may never know being we may never work in that city again!

 

[gadfly56]

Just got word from the Building Inspector and Fire Marshal, they are accepting to let us install as we originally intended (emergency lighting circuited with the room general lighting circuit).

i have to wonder if they will be updating their code, I may never know being we may never work in that city again!

Well it looks like you got an early Christmas present! Well done.