Electrical Room Fire Rating
The international code council icc is a non profit organization dedicated to developing model codes and standards used in the design build and compliance process.
Electrical room fire rating. You are correct that electrical vaults containing equipment with 600 amps or greaters must have at least 3 hour rated walls and 3 hour rated floors if there are any floors underneath the vault. For example an equipment room with a gas furnace input rating of 500 000 btuh would require a 1 hour fire barrier separation. Higher fire ratings of the rooms per nec article 450 and increased ventilation. Electrical room protection chicopee mechanical 2 aug 13 14 24.
The international codes i codes are the widely accepted comprehensive set of model codes used in the us and abroad to help ensure the engineering of safe sustainable affordable and resilient structures. The exception is the room enclosure has to be two hour rated with any penetrations seals properly the equipment in side does not have to carry a fire rating re. Vaults are definitely different from electrical rooms. This article is not about high value equipment rooms like server rooms which shall be protected by a system other than sprinkler systems this is about basic electrical rooms like switchboards panelboards switchgear or motor control centers 1000 volts nominal or less.
Typically the main electrical room has walls fire rated at 1 hour.