Testing Receptacles in a Patient Care Area

[Mountain Sparky]

I have a good understanding of what the NFPA 99 requires as far as testing receptacles in a patient care area. My question is how to do the ground impedance test in a practical application for new construction. What is the method to provide a reference point to the ground point of each receptacle? Is this a conductor run back to the electrical panel serving the area?

 

[luckylerado]

There are clamp on meters for that

 

[roger]

I have a good understanding of what the NFPA 99 requires as far as testing receptacles in a patient care area. My question is how to do the ground impedance test in a practical application for new construction. What is the method to provide a reference point to the ground point of each receptacle? Is this a conductor run back to the electrical panel serving the area?

You will need a special meter (the apparatus is shown in Annex A of NFPA 99), we use a Fluke 175 BIO MED safety analyzer. Typically we use a copper cold water pipe as the reference point.

The meter has to be calibrated yearly. Unless you are planning on doing this regularly it might be best to sub it out to a testing company.

There are two test to perform (more if Isolated Power is present) Equipotential and leakage in mv.

Roger