kitchen equipment; wiring requirements

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mshields

mshields

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Boston, MA
In the middle of kitchen modifications at a major hospital, I was asked as the EE to take a look at an kitchen OEM's piece of equipment; a table warmer.

This equipment consist of a table with 4 water basins, one or more of which have faucets. There is a shelf above the table with warming lights. On the exterior of the base are a 120V GFCI receptacle and a 208V L6-20 receptacle. Feeding these electrical loads is a built in panel built into a cabinet on the side of the base.

the table is enclosed on all 4 sides; a big box if you will. Here are my concerns:

* The panel is load center (I've seen this numerous times in kitchen equipment and I can live with it)
* All of the wiring to all of the aforementioned electrical loads is va THHN cable running loose directly underneath the 4 water basins. The two receptacles are flush mounted but there is no back box associated with them.
* The wiring is not even tie wrapped. It is literally a massive collection of spaghetti, terminations to the two receptacles completely exposed.

Intuitively, this goes against every common sense instinct that I have and I would like to compel the manufacturer to do something about it. e.g. utilize liquid tight for the circuits and put the wiring devices in gasketed boxes.

What I'm looking for is code of standards ammunition to apply.

Your input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Mike
 
mshields said:
In the middle of kitchen modifications at a major hospital, I was asked as the EE to take a look at an kitchen OEM's piece of equipment; a table warmer.

This equipment consist of a table with 4 water basins, one or more of which have faucets. There is a shelf above the table with warming lights. On the exterior of the base are a 120V GFCI receptacle and a 208V L6-20 receptacle. Feeding these electrical loads is a built in panel built into a cabinet on the side of the base.

the table is enclosed on all 4 sides; a big box if you will. Here are my concerns:

* The panel is load center (I've seen this numerous times in kitchen equipment and I can live with it)
* All of the wiring to all of the aforementioned electrical loads is va THHN cable running loose directly underneath the 4 water basins. The two receptacles are flush mounted but there is no back box associated with them.
* The wiring is not even tie wrapped. It is literally a massive collection of spaghetti, terminations to the two receptacles completely exposed.

Intuitively, this goes against every common sense instinct that I have and I would like to compel the manufacturer to do something about it. e.g. utilize liquid tight for the circuits and put the wiring devices in gasketed boxes.

What I'm looking for is code of standards ammunition to apply.

Your input would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Mike
Click to expand...

If the equipment is sold as basically a drop-in appliance you may be out of luck. AFAIK, the NEC dosen't apply to manufactured equipment WRT the internal wiring. Maybe there's a UL listing or other NFPA standard you can look to.
 
If it has a UL sticker (or other agency), I would say everything is fine. If it doesnt have a sticker, I would contact the OEM and have them arrange some sort of certification before i allowed power to be energized.
 
Sounds pretty much like everything I've ever installed from Franke or H&K; if its listed, its not your problem. There are thousands and thousands of these things installed and working properly.
 
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