Industrial Location

[tom baker]

Question came up today, regarding what is an industrial location. We have a water pump station for a city water system, 2 75 hp pumps fed via tray cable in cable tray. The concern is tray cable can only be used in a "industrial location". It currently runs unsupported about 5 ft from the tray to the motor, we'll fix that with a waterfall tray to the motor.
But is this an industrial location? Its not restricted access.

 

[ryan_618]

Re: Industrial Location

This is a definition from 240.2, but it pertains only to Part 8 of Article 240. I think that an AHJ could use some of these parameters in helping define what he/she determines to be industrial, however.

Supervised Industrial Installation. For the purposes of Part VIII, the industrial portions of a facility where all of the following conditions are met:
(1) Conditions of maintenance and engineering supervision ensure that only qualified persons monitor and service the system.
(2) The premises wiring system has 2500 kVA or greater of load used in industrial process(es), manufacturing activities, or both, as calculated in accordance with Article 220.
(3) The premises has at least one service or feeder that is more than 150 volts to ground and more than 300 volts phase-to-phase.
This definition excludes installations in buildings used by the industrial facility for offices, warehouses, garages, machine shops, and recreational facilities that are not an integral part of the industrial plant, substation, or control center.

 

[benaround]

Re: Industrial Location

Tom,

Industry; Production of goods,as in an economy

Commercial: The buying and selling of goods

Don't know if you can use this as an indicator but I'm glad you asked the question because I've wondered where the line is drawn before.

 

[charlie]

Re: Industrial Location

Tom, generally a municipal owned water company considers themselves to be exempt from the requirements of the Code and so do most water utilities. I understand that the Code does not exempt them but that is the way it is especially if it is owned by the municipality.

 

[don_resqcapt19]

Re: Industrial Location

Tom,

392.3 Uses Permitted.
Cable tray shall be permitted to be used as a support system for services, feeders, branch circuits, communications circuits, control circuits, and signaling circuits. Cable tray installations shall not be limited to industrial establishments. Where exposed to direct rays of the sun, insulated conductors and jacketed cables shall be identified as being sunlight resistant. Cable trays and their associated fittings shall be identified for the intended use.

The industrial limitation was removed a few cycles ago.
Don

 

[haskindm]

Re: Industrial Location

At the risk of re-starting the debate over who the AHJ is, etc. This is an example of the type of decision that the NEC leaves to the AHJ. What exactly is an industrial installation and when do we know that an installation will only be serviced by "qualified" people? These are judgement calls left to the AHJ, whoever that is.

 

[petersonra]

Re: Industrial Location

Originally posted by charlie:
Tom, generally a municipal owned water company considers themselves to be exempt from the requirements of the Code and so do most water utilities. I understand that the Code does not exempt them but that is the way it is especially if it is owned by the municipality.

the code does not exempt them specifically, however, many units of governemnt are by statute not regulated by other units of government. the code is only applicable if it is enacted by whomever has authority to enact such things. If the water board is not specifically covered by the code, they don't have to follow it unless they adopt it. Many governmental agencies that are otherwise "exempt" adopt the standrad building codes because they have to have some standards, and the common standards are the easiest to adopt. but nothing says they have to, or that they cannot make changed along the way.

Federal facilities are this way. They are not subject to local governemnt control, or the code, except because they have typically adopted the code themselves, or something very similar.

 

[haskindm]

Re: Industrial Location

One thing to be wary of in these installations that consider themselves "exempt" from the NEC:
90.4 says that the NEC is suitable for "mandatory application by governmental bodies..." " and for use by insurance inspectors ". So even if the installation is "exempt" from the NEC, when something bad happens (fire, injury, or death) the insurance inspectors are going to determine if the installation met the minimum standards as set forth in the NEC. If it did not, someone is going to be liable.

 

[bradleyelectric]

Re: Industrial Location

Originally posted by haskindm:
One thing to be wary of in these installations that consider themselves "exempt" from the NEC:
90.4 says that the NEC is suitable for "mandatory application by governmental bodies..." " and for use by insurance inspectors ". So even if the installation is "exempt" from the NEC, when something bad happens (fire, injury, or death) the insurance inspectors are going to determine if the installation met the minimum standards as set forth in the NEC. If it did not, someone is going to be liable.

Got one for you here. I used to work in a large steel mill. Many things were done that were not code compliant, and I never saw an inspector on premises in the 8 years I was there. When I asked a head inspector during a code class, he said they were a very large establishment that governed themselves. They were also self insured.