Article 700.9 (B)of the NEC states "...emergency loads shall be kept entirely independent of all other wiring and equipment, unless otherwise permitted in (1) through (4): Specifically, (3)"Wiring from two sources in a common junction box, attached to exit or emergency luminaires (lighting fixtures). Based on this language is it acceptable to run normal and emergency wiring for a 2'x4' light fixture that contains 2 lamps on emergency and 2 lamps on normal within the same ballast channel? I say yes but some contractors, engineers, and manufacturers differ in there interpretation. Any advise would be appreciated.
Normal & Emergency in Same Raceway
- Thread starter jrturner
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Re: Normal & Emergency in Same Raceway
I believe it is OK per 700.9(B)(2) - wiring supplied from two sources in exit or emergency luminairies. The handbook commentary makes it clear that this allows one lamp in a fixture to be on emergency power, and one lamp to be on normal power. Since most fixtures have all the wiring in one compartment, there wouldn't be any other practacle way to accomplish this without the wiring winding up in the same compartment.
I assume the emergency and normal wiring you are talking about both provide power to the fixture you are talking about. On the other hand, if you have 20 fixtures set end to end, and you are running both sources of power through all of them just to get emergency power to the last one, i'm not sure if that's OK. The verbage in the code seems to allow it, but I don't think that was the intent of the section.
I believe it is OK per 700.9(B)(2) - wiring supplied from two sources in exit or emergency luminairies. The handbook commentary makes it clear that this allows one lamp in a fixture to be on emergency power, and one lamp to be on normal power. Since most fixtures have all the wiring in one compartment, there wouldn't be any other practacle way to accomplish this without the wiring winding up in the same compartment.
I assume the emergency and normal wiring you are talking about both provide power to the fixture you are talking about. On the other hand, if you have 20 fixtures set end to end, and you are running both sources of power through all of them just to get emergency power to the last one, i'm not sure if that's OK. The verbage in the code seems to allow it, but I don't think that was the intent of the section.
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