(2011 ROC)4-24 Log #2545 NEC-P04 Final Action: Accept in Principle
(230.6)
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Submitter: Frederic P. Hartwell, Hartwell Electrical Services, Inc.
Comment on Proposal No: 4-64
Recommendation: Accept the proposal in principle and in part. Continue to reject item (5). Accept item (6) [which will become (5)] reworded as follows:
(5) Where installed within rigid metal conduit (Type RMC) or intermediate metal conduit (Type IMC) used to accommodate the clearance requirements in 230.24 and routed directly through an eave but not a wall of a building.
Substantiation: At the most recent IAEI Section Meeting, considerable discussion took place around whether service conductors traveling within an outer building wall had actually entered the building. The consensus was that as soon as the outer membrane had been penetrated, the conductors had entered the building. This submitter fully endorses this conclusion, but it makes service masts of the sort described in the proposal substantiation problematic. Do they penetrate the outer building membrane? Of course they do. Does anyone in their right mind want to disallow such masts? Probably not, but the panel statement that the application is “clearly outside the building” is incorrect in this instance.
This proposal addresses the question, but limits the application to heavy wall steel raceways. Remember that masts are not necessarily steel pipe; a heavy timber with cable on it is a mast within the provisions of 230.28. This section clearly indicates this by addressing raceway masts as simply one possibility in the second sentence. Heavy wall conduit masts have been used for this purpose for generations without objections. The proposal further qualifies the acceptable use to a direct pass-through. The submitter was once presented, as an inspector, with a conduit run that went up the outside of a building, then horizontally through an eave cavity some ten feet, and then up to its eventual
weatherhead.
Panel Meeting Action: Accept in Principle
Revise the proposed text to read as follows:
(5) Where installed in overhead service masts on the outside surface of the building traveling through the eave of that building to meet the requirements of 230.24.
Panel Statement: The addition of item six in Proposal 4-46, renumbered as item 5, will clarify what the is allowed.
Number Eligible to Vote: 10
Ballot Results: Affirmative: 9 Negative: 1
Explanation of Negative:
ROGERS, J.: This change is not really necessary and the Panel should retain the rejection and rationale used in the ROP stage. In addition the change made by the Panel at the ROC meeting creates a greater enforcement problem.
Comment on Affirmative:
STAFFORD, T.: It appears that the panel statement is incorrect and incomplete as noted on the ballot document.
