MCC located in same room as pumps?

[jdcpe17]

I am looking through the code and forums and everywhere I can find. Thought it does not seem a typical thing, I don't see anything that appears to rule out locating an MCC lineup in the same room as that with pumps. Under normal operations, there would be no water anywhere in the room. The MCCs are located about 5 feet from the nearest pump. Can anyone shoot any holes in this idea?

 

[Dennis Alwon]

I am looking through the code and forums and everywhere I can find. Thought it does not seem a typical thing, I don't see anything that appears to rule out locating an MCC lineup in the same room as that with pumps. Under normal operations, there would be no water anywhere in the room. The MCCs are located about 5 feet from the nearest pump. Can anyone shoot any holes in this idea?

I can't. I assume the clearance of 110.26 are met esp. 110.26(I)

 

[Cow]

Under normal operations, there would be no water anywhere in the room.

That's the problem, everyone designs for normal conditions, instead of what happens when things break. At the bare minimum I'd make sure they installed a floor drain and housekeeping pad.

Something similar, our shop installed an MCC in a plant quite a few years ago before I ever worked for them. Story goes, not to long after, the plant ran a water line right over the top of it. And, you guessed it, it burst one day. Completely hosed the MCC. A bunch of the connections oxidized later on, adding up to who knows how many service calls we had for intermittant connections, production lines not starting, etc. I'm sure in the long run the customer spent FAR more on service calls and lost production, than if we had just torn the MCC out and installed a new one.:rant:

 

[Jraef]

Did a startup on a job with one 900HP pump and a 4160V soft starter in a pump house. The expansion joint on the pump was not tight and 10 seconds after I started the soft starter, it blew open and started spraying water all over the NEMA 1 4160V gear. We all ran for the doors and let it go, luckily the motor over loaded (unrestricted flow) and the starter tripped it off-line before any of the water got into critical areas of the gear. That would have been one heck of a fireworks display if it had.

After that, the City had the GC install a cinder block wall between the gear and the pump.