Indoor vs. Outdoor classification: 110.28 Enclosure Selection

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mayanees

mayanees

Senior Member
Location
Westminster, MD
Occupation
Electrical Engineer and Master Electrician
I had a simple question posed to me that I haven't had much luck figuring out the answer, as follows:

What definitively constitutes indoor vs outdoor?

We have a situation where we're adding some electrical equipment on the side of a building. The question was posed as to whether or not we could just put a roof and some walls around the equipment and then call it indoors, thereby letting us select enclosures from the "For Indoor Use" section of 110.28.

I think it's just a matter of weather protection, and that by walling and roofing off the area we can call it Indoors.

Can anyone share a better technical rationale or explanation of what classifies an area as indoors?

Thanks for any comments.

John M
 
If you're talking about something like a dog house or a closet around the equipment, it would still have to be weather tight. So roof flashed to the building, with a roofing material on it, exterior walls wrapped and then either sided or stuccoed. Doors would have to be sealed and exterior rated.

I'm not in the field end of the trade anymore so I couldn't tell you what the cost difference would be between buying exterior gear or building a closet. The problem sometimes get's to be with the doors is that they need a center mullion, if they are big enough and then you can have clearance problems.
 
Thanks John for the useful information.
That will likely drive us to using outdoor equipment because of all the trouble it would take to build anything on this particular government facility.
John M
 
I don't find a 110.28 in the 2008 code what does it say today in 2011, I assume thats the ref doc????

dick
 
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