Plumbing Passing Over Electrical Equipment

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l3city

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Hi fellas!! Thanks for all your responses on my previous thread. Well here is another one. When installing electrical equipment you have certain clearances going all ways. On the top of an electrical equipment (say a panel) you have a "dedicated zone" from floor to 6-feet above the equipment. However, I recently ran on a situation in which they got a big water pipe running over (inside) an electrical room, but way above, outside the 6-feet clearances.

This issue is still coming for review every now and then and seems that the building owner is not very happy with this. I already reviewed the code and read about the clearances above electrical equip., but I can't find :smile: anything specific on this. Any comments/opinons are very well recieved.
thanks for your time.
 
I think you may be reading this wrong 110.26(F)(1)(a) states that you need to have dedicated space from the floor to 6 feet above the top of the equipment. Therefore if you have a switchboard that is 6 feet tall you actually need 12 feet from the floor for dedicated space.

If this Plumbing is run above that space then you can install a a drip pan or some other protection to ensure that it will not leak onto the switchboard per 110.26(F)(1)(b).

Hope this helps.

-Ed
 
110.26(F)(1)(b) comes to mind:
Foreign Systems.
The area above the dedicated space required by 110.26(F)(1)(a) shall be permitted to contain foreign systems, provided protection is installed to avoid damage to the electrical equipment from condensation, leaks, or breaks in such foreign systems.
Click to expand...
 
l3city said:
However, I recently ran on a situation in which they got a big water pipe running over (inside) an electrical room, but way above, outside the 6-feet clearances.
Click to expand...


What do you mean by outside of the 6' clearances? If the foreign piping is not over the footprint of the equipment you're OK.
 
I agree with Ed and Trevor. But I will offer a longer version.

This is an area of the code that is often mis-interpreted (imagine that!), because the wording is a bit complicated (imagine that!).

There are two “boxes” that need to be kept clear. Each box has height, width, and depth, and each has a bottom surface from which you take the measurements for height, width, and depth.

Box One: The working space. It begins at floor level. Its height is 6.5 feet, or the height of the equipment, whichever is higher. Its width is 30 inches, or the width of the equipment, whichever is wider. Its depth is given in the tables, but starts at 36 inches. Nothing is allowed to be installed or stored in this box.

Box Two: Space that is dedicated to the electrical installation. It begins at the floor. It has the same width and depth as the equipment. But you measure its height from the top surface of the equipment. From that point, it is six feet high (meaning it goes six feet higher than the top of the equipment). No foreign pipes are allowed to run in this box. You can run foreign pipes above this box, if you use drip pans or covers.

Please note that there is nothing to preclude installing foreign pipes above the “working space” box, so long as they are further from the floor than the height of Box One (i.e., minimum of 6.5 feet)
 
well my thing is I just hung two transformers up high in a room on strut and half inch rod due to space. There are 2 copper condensate drains running over the top about 18 inches away. My GF says they can use drip pans. Is this o.k. ? Thanks
 
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