fire hall wiring

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electriciangirl

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Oulu, Wisconsin
I was asked by the local volunteer fire station to do an estimate for receptacles to plug in their battery chargers that are built in to the trucks. The man I talked to wants hard-wired reels of flexible cord. So the installation would be eight j-boxes along the back wall of the building with retractable cord coming out of them. This is what he wanted. I told him what I would do is intall rec. along the back wall and then he was free to plug in any type of extension cord he wanted to reach the trucks. He was fine with that but liked to idea of hard-wiring so there's no way the cord could get accidently unplugged if someone decides to use the receptacle for something else. What would you guys do in this situation and what code applies here?
 
I have installed many outlets for fire and rescue and what you propose is fine. But may I suggest that you install the outlets for the cord reels with a pilot light and GFCI breakers. The GFCI will protect the Fire and Rescue personnel and the pilot lights will let them know that there is power to their trucks. Nothing like getting on the scene and having dead equipment.
 
Cord reels or SO cord drops mounted to the ceiling are commonly done. No cords running across the floor to get run over.

Make sure to add a breakaway connection down near the end of the cord so that if someone forgets to unplug or the auto-eject doesn't work it still won't damage the cordset. The breakaways I have seen are just a straight male to female connection. The connections seem to be 20 amp straight at the engines and ambos.
 
Don't take the cord off the back wall. Come off the ceiling if at all possible.
If you can't, for whatever reason, there should be no reason you cannot mount a drop reel horizonally - unless the manufacture specifies limitations with thier product. Heavy duty hard wired drop reels are a bit of money but they are very nice to install and they work very well for their users.
Personally I don't like the idea of adding GFCI's to the circuit if you don't have to- the cord is supplying battery power and resistive heating loads. block heaters are prone to faulty gfci tripping issues.
 
don_resqcapt19 said:
There are hardwired cord reels available. As a former volunteer firefighter I would strongly recomend a product of this type.
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This is the arrangement I usually find specified for fire station shore lines.
The auto eject device typically comes with the fire truck.
 
jimport said:
The products that Don linked to are good. However a tight cord cap can have too much blade tension to allow the ejector to eject the cord.
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Apparently this is a common problem.
I have seen short(approx. 18") pig tails with straight blade devices plugged into the shore line.
The theory being, that if the auto eject device fails to operate the pig tail will disconnect from the shore line as the vehicle moves.
 
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