When is an elevator hoistway not a hoistway.

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conmgt

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If an elevator's motor, gearbox, and sheaves are at the top of a hoistway and directly above an elevator car, are they in the hoistway or in a machine room/space?

620.37 (C)(2) Feeders shall be permitted inside the hoistway for elevators with driving machine motors located in the hoistway...otherwise they must be outside the hoistway.

Is the hoistway only the section where the car rides or is it the whole shaft from pit to the motor?
 
Here's my dilemma. I need to run a feeder to an elevator motor. The motor and controls are sitting on a floor of widely spaced 1/4" steel strips over a handful of steel beams and the car hangs directly below it.
The gap between each steel "floor" strip is about an inch so while standing next to the motor you can see all the way down the hoistway and from the hoistway you can see up to the motor and machinery.
Not even a hint of a fire separation wall, ceiling, floor.

620.37 (C) requires feeders to be installed outside of the hoistway unless the driving machine motors are in the hoistway.
In my case, to install the feeders outside of the hoistway would require me to penetrate the roof instead of keeping everything inside of the hoistway. Its adds a lot to the job and that's why I'm posting this thread.

Is a fire rated assembly (wall, floor, ceiling) what separates a hoistway from a machine room?
 
"Hoistway" is the portion of the shaft in which the elevator car and/or counterweight travel. Includes the pit and overhead space. Generally speaking, it is the area containing the guide rails.
In your case, it sounds like the hoist machine and controls are above the hoistway, in a "machine room" (accessed via a separate door intended for full bodily entry). Even though they are only separated by a metal grating, the machine room is not considered part of the hoistway.

However, your case might be worthy of a call to the AHJ.
I'm in California, so things are possibly a bit different. (We follow Calif. Electrical Code, based on NEC), but CAC 620.37(C)(2) says:

"By special permission, feeders for elevators shall be permitted within an existing hoistway if no conductors are spliced within the hoistway"

Is this an existing elevator being modernized? Or a new installation?
If existing, your feeders may be allowed.
 
Existing installation.
The conductors in question are the power source for the whole elevator operation and its a single elevator. So are these conductors feeders or branch circuits?
When they get to what we will now considered to be a machine room, they will hit a disconnect and then a transformer all placed in the machine room. The transformer will serve the single motor and its controls.
Total length of 1 1/4" EMT within the hoistway will be 4' continuous...no conduit body, coupling, connect, etc.
 
These would be considered "feeders" to the elevator system.

In my experience, these feeders would be allowed inside the hoistway as long as they supply only the elevator equipment, and do not feed any lighting or other circuits unrelated to the elevator.
Best of luck.
 
I have been in the exact same situation and I chose to penetrate the roof and avoid the hoistway.

Later one of the elevator guys said I could have run it in the shaft but this same guy also swore up and down that his new equipment could not function without a copper EGC. That being the case I took his advice with a grain of salt.
 
How long was that run? From the pit on up?
The best place for me to penetrate the roof is the exact place where water ponds and remains days after a rain.
 
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