Joseph Wages, Jr. Mervin J. Savostianik examines how electrical code changes have impacted electric-shock drowning in the NEC, and we provide a peek into the changes made in the NEC Laura Hildreth January 20, Laura Hildreth. Laura L. Hildreth is the managing editor for IAEI Magazine and has worked in editorial and technical publications within the electrical industry for eighteen years, the technology industry for over twenty years, and the news industry for even longer.
Her passion is encouraging communication and learning no matter what the tool. Connect with her on LinkedIn at www. If it detects even a slight flow of electricity to a grounded item, it immediately shuts off the flow of electricity. This protects people from electrocution. It is particularly important to protect people where they could come in contact with exposed grounded items such as plumbing fixtures.
If too much electricity flows through a wire, it will get hot. Sometimes it can get hot enough to start a fire inside the walls of a house. Traditional circuit breakers protect your house from fires by shutting off the flow of electricity to a wire when there is too much demand for electricity.
This can happen when too many items are plugged into a circuit. Circuit breakers do not protect people from electrocution. Their purpose is to protect you from a fire. GFCI receptacles were required in houses starting in Originally they were only required at the exterior of the house and by swimming pool equipment. Over the years, GFCI receptacles have been required in more locations such as garages, bathrooms, kitchens, etc.
The following table applies to most municipalities, but some local codes may be different. Please check with your local building department. In most cases, no. For example, all of the bathroom receptacles throughout a house can be protected by one GFCI receptacle.
This is true for the receptacles at a kitchen counter that are required to be GFCI protected. You may only see one GFCI receptacle, but all down-circuit receptacles can be protected if installed properly.
The GFCI receptacle simply needs to be located closest to the breaker on that circuit. The seller is not required to upgrade the receptacles unless the electrical system has been modified. This applies to bathrooms too. Key to this update: it extends beyond receptacle outlets to include all outlets. Numerous incidents inspired this code change, including an accident involving a year-old boy who jumped over a fence and touched an AC condenser unit with an electrical fault.
The outer metal housing was electrified and the child was fatally electrocuted immediately upon coming in contact with the condenser and fence simultaneously. With GFCIs installed, leakage-current trips may be near constant, rendering large equipment unusable. In the future, I hope industries rethink products with acceptable leakage current, hertz and frequency values to reduce future compatibility issues. Further, this change will likely spur discussions related to current GFCI requirements focusing only on receptacle outlets.
Hardwiring equipment does not eliminate the electrical hazard. I venture someone will propose public inputs during the next code-review cycle to challenge details about receptacle outlets versus outlets requiring GFCI protection. The NEC included Article Before its inclusion, builders relied on requirements in later chapters of the Code chapters five through seven , for safety guidance.
NEC created some confusion when This presented a challenge: a chapter two requirement applied a generally wider level of GFCI protection. This conflicted with chapter five, which has less coverage of GFCI protection. The correlating committee recognized similar conflicts exist across industries and formulated a task group that challenged every code panel to look at their GFCI requirements and attempt to align them with Each code panel performed their review; some made changes, others did not.
There is room for discussion in future revisions of the Code regarding shock hazards in the special other than dwelling unit applications. While representatives in agriculture and RV industries have valid concerns about nuisance tripping, I believe the NEC should revisit Article for agricultural buildings and Article for RVs and RV parks to address valid shock hazard concerns and consider increasing GFCI protection to 50 amps. Farming and RV industries rely on circuits that operate at well over 20 amps, yet no safety requirements exist.
Much of the equipment used in these industries can be quite old with leakage current a serious concern. In my opinion, the Code lacks parity in how safety requirements exist in some industries and not in others.
That must change. The studies needed to promote change exist. The University of Iowa and the University of Nebraska have uncovered many incidents where farmers lost their lives due to faulty agricultural electrical equipment. If RV parks and farms running to amp receptacles without GFCI protection is not deemed a concern worth addressing, how can anyone claim running to amp receptacles outside of dwelling units is a hazard? Common sense dictates both are hazards and change is necessary.
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