Egress hardware for electrical/switchgear rooms

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wletkey

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Zion Illinois 60069
Are panic or pushbars required to exit electrical or switchgear rooms? NEC states less than 1200 amp services do not require this type of door hardware. The room consist of a 480/277 system with 2 transformers dropping voltage to 120/208. The main breaker at 480vac is less than 600 amps. The building is close to being turned over to the owner, the concern is that a violation of some article of NFPA 70E is being violated. Please advise
Best Regards, Bill
 
You answered your own question:
wletkey said:
NEC states less than 1200 amp services do not require this type of door hardware.
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More precisely, the NEC states that if there is equipment rated 1200 amps or more, and if there is a door intended to be an exit from the working space, and if that door is closer than 25 feet from the edge of the working space, then you do need the door to open outwards and you do need panic hardware. It sounds like your installation does not meet all of these criteria.
 
Check with your serving Utility Co.

Check with your serving Utility Co.

If this is a electrical meter room (not just a room with switchboards and transformers), the serving utility may have more restrictive requirements. In the Los Angeles DWP area, all meter rooms must have "panic bar" or "Crash bar" type hardware, and doors must swing out. We have had to tell architects to spec this, and sometimes they call the main LA DWP regs. office, and don't get the right answer.
Then the field representative comes out (thankfully, at the start of the job), and I get a written clarification from him to pass on to the GC/architect. It's pretty expensive to refit a door later, when the holes/hardware have been set up for standard ADA lever operation, which doesn't satisfy DWP's regs.

If it is a room without a utility meter, then the NEC is exactly as your OP and followings answers stated. I'd still check with your Bldg. Dept. inspector (bldg., not just electrical, if they are different persons).
 
good sense?

good sense?

and why is it we contractors and engineers don't recommend (strongly!) that electrical room
doors "all" swing out and have crash bars? At the design stage the cost is minimal at most....
doesn't this just make sense?
 
charlie b said:
You answered your own question: More precisely, the NEC states that if there is equipment rated 1200 amps or more, and if there is a door intended to be an exit from the working space, and if that door is closer than 25 feet from the edge of the working space, then you do need the door to open outwards and you do need panic hardware. It sounds like your installation does not meet all of these criteria.
Click to expand...

The OP stated that his service was only 600 amps, so he does not need to meet any of the requirements. Or am I reading that section of the code wrong?
 
Knightryder12 said:
The OP stated that his service was only 600 amps, so he does not need to meet any of the requirements. Or am I reading that section of the code wrong?
Click to expand...
Did you not notice that I already said that this installation does not meet the requirements?
 
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