NFPA Journal - May/June 2019 - 55

NFPACONFERENCE&EXPO
SANANTONIO2019
Public inputs and comments ranged
from adding GFCI protection in new
areas of a building to requiring GFCI
protection everywhere in a dwelling for
15- and 20-amp receptacle outlets. The
result landed somewhere in the middle.
CMP 2 couldn't justify expanding GFCI
to every receptacle outlet in a dwelling,
as was suggested at the public input
stage, citing that the substantiation submitted was insufficient. However, there
was a considerable amount of discussion
around the merit and the idea of GFCI
protection for every receptacle outlet in
a dwelling unit.
In dwelling units, GFCI protection
has expanded to include both 125- and
250-volt receptacles supplied by a single-phase circuit at 150 volts or less to
ground. The code making panel also
revised the requirement in basements
to include all of the basement, whether
it is finished or not. The biggest impact
this will have is requiring GFCI protection for dryers and ranges, if the
range receptacle is within 6 feet of the
sink. Since one of the options likely to
be used for this protection is a GFCI
circuit breaker at the branch circuit
supply, it will be important to make
note of what level the device is set to
trip at. This could mean the difference
between ground-fault protection for
personnel or ground-fault protection
for equipment.

Emergency power
disconnects for dwellings
While we're on the topic of dwelling
units, there is another big change
coming for one- and two-family dwellings. For some areas of the country,
the addition of Article 230.85 will take
some getting used to, which is why it
deserves an explanation.
This is the new section of the NEC
that requires an emergency power
disconnect to be installed in a readily
accessible location outside of the dwelling. Some parts of the country have
been mounting the service disconnect
outside for years. In those areas this is
not a major adjustment, but it requires
that it be marked as both the service disconnect and the emergency disconnect.
In other areas where the service disconnect has traditionally been installed

inside the home, there are three options
for meeting this requirement: mount
the service disconnect outside and mark
it as mentioned; provide an adequately
rated meter disconnect that is marked
"emergency disconnect, meter disconnect, not service equipment"; and any
other listed disconnect switch that is
suitable for use as service equipment is
marked "emergency disconnect, not service equipment."
There was also a revision to add
conditions for a service disconnect to
consist of two to six switches or circuit
breakers. This will force the majority
of service disconnecting means to be
a single switch or circuit breaker or
meet certain requirements in order to
have more than one. This came from
an input that based the need for this
revision on safe electrical work practices. This revision provides the ability
for an installer/maintainer to operate
a single disconnect that de-energizes
conductors and circuit parts in the
enclosure except for the line side of the
disconnecting means. This is aimed at
reducing the likelihood of an incident
with energized conductors or circuit
parts in the service equipment, and
enhancing safety.

Code organization
Revisions are also being considered
that affect the organization of the book
itself. Every cycle seems to bring with it
changes that shift where users can find
the needed requirements. Sometimes
these changes can have a major impact,
as they did when all of Chapter 3 was
reorganized to improve usability. Sometimes these revisions simply need to be
noted so that users are aware of where
requirements have moved to.
This time around seems to be more of
the latter-most of the new articles and
corresponding deleted articles are aimed
at improving the usability of the NEC.
For instance, Chapter 8 involves the
requirements for communications systems. This chapter has historically had
more of a standalone feel to it regarding
the rest of the code. Because of this,
NEC users who frequent Chapter 8 also
tend to be focused solely on their specific article in Chapter 8. Over time, this
has led to many requirements that are

the same across all of the communication systems to be duplicated among the
articles. For this reason and to increase
the usability of Chapter 8, these duplicate requirements were placed into a
new Article 800, and the existing Article
800 was renumbered to Article 805. This
also mirrors the process used for other
parts of the code, including Chapter 3
and Article 300.

Reorganization for
overvoltage protection
Another noteworthy reorganization
revolves around overvoltage protection,
or, as it is more commonly called, surge
protection. Articles 280 and 285 have
long been the locations in the NEC to
find the requirements for installing
surge protective devices, if you chose
to install them. This time, the conversation was about how the code has
always required protection against
overcurrent, but what about overvoltage protection? It's a question that
has often arisen since the requirement
was put in Article 230 to have a surge
protective device installed on services
supplying dwelling units, and the logical place to put this "new" overvoltage
protection article was next to overcurrent protection. While it is a new home
for existing requirements, not much
has changed that would affect how
these devices are installed.
These are just a few of the proposed
changes for the 2020 revision cycle.
If you plan to attend the Conference
& Expo leading up to the technical
session, be sure to attend the various
educational sessions that will speak
to a number of the revisions, the work
that went into creating them, and the
impact these changes will have on the
electrical industry. We are just coming
into the summer of 2019, but the process will soon start all over again for
the 2023 edition. And you don't have to
be on a code making panel to be part of
the revision process.
For more information on how to get
involved in the NEC process, visit the
NEC document information page at
nfpa.org/70.
DEREK VIGSTOL is an NFPA technical lead,
Electrical Tech Services.

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NFPA Journal - May/June 2019

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