floor mounted receptacles

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LSANTANA0722

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Columbia, SC, USA
I have an interesting question that was given to me by a contractor. In a renovation project the Contractor mounted the new wall outlets in the offices at the same height as the existing outlets, 12" AFF. Someone called him on it and said they have to be mounted at mininum 15" AFF, per ADA and ANSI. If this is the case, are floor mounted outlets not considered ADA compliant?

This came up because originally the design called for floor mounted receptacles, but then the Owner changed his mind and wanted them wall mounted. So, are floor mounted outlets considered to be ADA compliant? I'd think not, but maybe I'm wrong and they are. And, if they are, then does it matter if the outlets were mounted at 12" AFF rather than 15" AFF?

If anyone has any information, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.
 
I am not familiar with ADA rules, so I cannot address that part of your question. I can say that the National Electrical Code (NEC) does not have any rules that require placement of receptacles a specific distance above the finished floor. Indeed, if you are not talking about a dwelling unit, the NEC has almost no requirements for receptacles at all.

For dwelling units, the NEC gives us a number of places where receptacles must be installed. There is a rule that says you can?t take credit for a receptacle fulfilling that requirement, if it is too high off the floor (that height being 5.5 feet). There is another rule that says that if you wish to place a receptacle on the floor, instead of on the wall, then you can?t take credit for the receptacle fulfilling that requirement, if it is too far away from the wall (that distance being 18 inches). Neither of these requirements appears to have much of a bearing on your question. I mention them only as a way of demonstrating that the NEC will not give you your answer.

Someone else will have to take up the ADA part of your question.
 
I assume this is a commercial space (you mentioned office).
Commercial spaces do not require any particular spacing between receptacle like residential do.
Therefore, you don't need to have outlets on certain spots on the wall.
Second, a floor outlet is a floor outlet, IT CAN NOT BE ADA COMPLIANT. Your client can ask (for whatever reason) for 1000 floor outlets.
However, if you mount them on the wall, I'd think they'd have to be ADA compliant.
I had a similar situation where we had a peninsula with the counter extending 16" some. The engineer put a small appliance receptacle in the middle of the peninsula. The inspector said:"it's not code compliant". So we removed the outlet. It wasn't needed there, but if we were gonna install it it had to comply with code.

LSANTANA0722 said:
I have an interesting question that was given to me by a contractor. In a renovation project the Contractor mounted the new wall outlets in the offices at the same height as the existing outlets, 12" AFF. Someone called him on it and said they have to be mounted at mininum 15" AFF, per ADA and ANSI. If this is the case, are floor mounted outlets not considered ADA compliant?

This came up because originally the design called for floor mounted receptacles, but then the Owner changed his mind and wanted them wall mounted. So, are floor mounted outlets considered to be ADA compliant? I'd think not, but maybe I'm wrong and they are. And, if they are, then does it matter if the outlets were mounted at 12" AFF rather than 15" AFF?

If anyone has any information, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.
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