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Speaker 1: Here is your host, Paul Abernavit.
Speaker 2: What up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Master the neec.
My name is Paul Abernathy, your host. Thanks for taking
time out of your day to join me for today's podcast.
As we look at the National Electrical Code and of
course all things electrically related. If you have topics that
you want me to discuss on future episodes, you know
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It's very simple, easy form. Just put in your name
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because I'm sure they have the same questions that you
may have, and so it just makes it nice and
convenient for everybody. And again, I love addressing questions and
teaching people the NEC But anyway, welcome to today's episode.
We're going to be looking at a change in the
twenty twenty six see and it's not a big change
on today's episode. It's just one that I want to
use as a public service announcement, and that is to
tell you that sometimes you're going to get code change books,
you're gonna get publications that are out there and they're
going to say something's a code change or something is
different in the code. And to be honest in all fairness.
Sometimes these books are started well before the ink is
dry on any public inputs or public comments or the process,
and so again all in all fairness to them. Sometimes
we get these things started and it never fully ends
up where we want it to be. So we just
want up to make that all clear. And that's what
we're gonna talk about today because there is a document
that's out there. It's from a inspection association. It's great document.
We're reviewing it. But we do see some you know,
every now and we'll see issues and things like that.
But in this case, we're going to be talking about
two ten seventy. That's lighting outlet requirements. Subtle changes, we'll
talk about it. They're not big, but we will address
them because it does clear up some stuff that people
did have confusion about prior, and they asked theirselves. They
scratched their head when it came to, for example, a
battery backup for a switch that in how the lumina
air with the switch went you know, went bad or
you know battery was going bad or something that would
give notice and all this kind of good stuff has
changed for the twenty twenty six edition of the National
Electrical Code of course, we'll look at the twenty twenty
three and then see how it changed for the twenty
twenty six and give you some context to that, and
we'll also talk about a couple other little changes that
took place in two ten dots seventy. Now, again two
ten dots seventies is probably low hanging fruit from any
of you. Again, it's just dealing with lighting outlets. That
is your lighting outlet box that you're gonna hang illumina
air on, if you will. And so there was recquided
garments under two ten dot seventy for that, and in
the twenty twenty six edition it's broken down into two
ten dot seventy A, which is dealing with the dwelling
unit lighting outlets, okay, And then of course there's a B,
which is dealing with a guest rooming, guest suite lighting outlets.
And then of course there's a C, which is generic.
It says all occupancies, and then of course it gives
some requirements for addicts and under four spaces, utility rooms
and basements and whatnot. So we'll kind of cover all
three of those in this episode, so we can kind
of lay that all out so you can get and
see what has changed and kind of make it a
little bit easier for you to understand. Okay, First and foremost,
in the twenty twenty three edition of the National Electrical Code,
when it went to the general statement two ten dot seventy,
it had basically a statement in there that said the
switch a listed wall amount of control devices shall not
rely exclusively on battery power unless it incorporates a positive
means of noification of impending battery depletion. And in manufacturers
could do that in many ways. It could fail in
the on position. It could you know, they could come
up with a you know, maybe some kind of a
notification to let you know it was the battery was failing.
Or again when it did fail, it failed in the
on you know, failed in all on position. So it
makes a battery relevant. Well, in the twenty twenty six discussion,
all the way back in the public input stage, it
was made very clear by a public input that said,
you know, why do we need to worry about this battery?
And if I did have a wall amount of control
device that was on battery, why do I care if
the battery depletes? And you're saying, well, because we want
to know, okay, And in some people in the industry
manufacturers of such devices, for example, said well, I think
what people want is for some type of alarm or
something to come on, just like a smoke alarm to
let you know that it's trying to change the battery
or something like that. That makes sense, Okay, they're thinking, yet,
that's what we want. But then people started to say, well,
wait a minute, and this is exactly what the code
panel stated. If you're the kind of code panel geek
and you want to go look at revisions, you look
at the first revision, which is seventy nine sixty six,
and this is under the first revision for the public
input stage. And again for those that don't know, we
put public inputs in and then of course the code
panels get together and they look at it, they read
all the public inputs, and then we generate what's called
a first draft or first revision, and the first revision
is then circulated and everybody out there can comment on it, right,
and then they can submit a public comment on that
first revision, okay, And that's how the process works. So
in this scenario, it was admitted and it was a
public input, and I believe if I've got it right. Originally,
the public input was what is was trying to make
a statement about making a change. Four four four four
was trying to make a statement about the battery and
unless positive means and advanced notification and all this kind
of other stuff. It was trying to ease into this
and make this a little more palatable for people. However,
the code panel looked at it, and this is the
explanation from the code panel. Okay, and here is what
they said. So what they did was they struck out
all of that language, the portion about it that says
it had to be, you know, not rely exclusively on
a battery unless the means are provided to automatically de
energize the lighting outlet upon battery failure. All of that
language was ultimately in the twenty twenty sixth edition is
struck out. It's gone not there anymore. Some people will
be going, yay, I got you know, wait a minute,
I've got hold on, I've got some people hold on,
hold on, there you go, I got all right, It's enough.
So people be excited about that. And you have to
read the rationale which made sense from the code making panel.
The code making panel said, look, the exhaustion of a
battery in a control device does not pose any greater
threat to safe egress than the failure of any other
element of the lighting brand circuit, such as a filled lamp,
loss of utility power, or a tripped circuit breaker. The
committee also recognizes that the automatic energization of a lighting
could also create a safety issue. Additionally, the need for
safe egress lighting falls within the scope of NFPA one
zero one. So ultimately their decision was, you know what,
strike all this out and let's just cover the normal
requirements for a B and C and not get into
this requirement for battery or automatic energizing it to if
there's a battery failure, get rid of all that. Just
trash it all. And that's what they ultimately decided to do. Now,
the reason I bring this up is because there is
a very popular document that is available that teaches code changes,
and they have a very lengthy explanation and analysis and
at a glance, However, the at a glance or basic
executive summary we like to say, is incorrect because they
make a statement that it's going to require some kind
of visual or audible to let you know that the
battery has failed and that is not that is not
what it actually says. Now they do go on into
the analysis and explain that at the end, but I
just tell people, be very very careful sometimes when you're
looking at things like that, because there isn't any requirement
for any audible or anything like that. It might make
perfect sense. Okay, it makes sense to me, but it
doesn't it doesn't actually state that. Okay, So just want
everybody again, there's gonna be a lot of things coming out,
a lot of people putting stuff out there, and so
make sure you do take the time to read it,
study it. Ask folks if you have something again, you
can always send it up to hear to us and
we'll give you our take on it. Again, our opinions
are our opinions. But again it's usually founded pretty good
in the fact that we kind of do this for
a living. So but at the end of the day, again,
just be careful in it. And it basically seems like
a really long analysis of two day that was unnecessary.
It basically could have been summed up in a sentence
that said that the code making panel feels that the
wallmount of control device that was battery operated that would
fail is really no different than the lumin air failing
itself or you, or the lamp burning out or the
circuit breaker tripping. It is what it is, so why
should the wallmount of control device be treated any different
that type of scenario. So that's kind of the summary
of that, letting you know kind of Okay, well, I
get it, I get what changed now with the removal
of that. The only other things that really significantly change
here is that we now reincorporated the word switch back
into it instead of just wall mounted control device, which
we know is a switch, but it doesn't always have
to be a switch. Could be one of those peaks,
it could be something else. Okay, cast does I guess
they call them. It could be other options right for switching,
But at the end of the day, it's the batteries
irrelevant to that now, okay, in but it is still
a switch, is what we're familiar with. So one change
that just is kind of the subtle change is it
brings the word switch back into the play. Okay, So
it's now wall switch or wall controlled or wall mounted
controlled device, which could be one of those battery powered
remote devices for convenience or something like that, you could
have that. Okay, so that does allow for that. Now
everywhere in the exceptions you have exception number one, exception
number two, it brings in the wall switches back into
the fold. Okay, that's just a simple that's a low
hanging fruit change, right, because we all knew that a
listed wallmount of control device could be a switch as well.
But one thing that they did add here was an
exception number three, and I'll read it to you, and
this is specific to maybe some of those areas where
you have really let's say you have that closet in
the hall or something that you have laundry equipment in there,
and you know you've got the sitting there going. Okay, Well,
it says in the general rule that at least one
lighting outlet controlled by a wall switch or listed wall
mounted control device should be installed in every habitable room, kitchen,
laundry area, and bathroom. And so people argued and said, well,
what if I have a hallway and I just have
some accordion doors, and what if I have an area
which is a laundry area that has the washer and
dryer in there. Do I have to put a switch
in there? Do I have to put a lighting outlet
in there. I mean it is a laundry area. And
some people reading it in the lines would say absolutely
to me it. To me, it was no different in saying, well,
I mean, obviously you can't get in the area. It's
a smaller area, but I guess you could. And you
need lighting in there, obviously, because it requires that you
have a at least one lighting outlet that's controlled by
a wall switch. Okay, wall switch now or listed wallmount
of control device. Well, that could be argumentative by many jurisdictions. No,
so now they added an exception number three that says, okay,
look a lighting outlet and it's control switch. And to
be honest with you, they kind of deviated from the exception,
deviated from their their position. There's normal where they call
it a lighting out and it's wall switches or listed
wall mounted control devices. They just went on and said,
look a lighting out and it's control switch. Okay. So
it really doesn't jive harmonize with the everything that was
the language of the rest of it. But we get
what it's saying. We don't have to be that nitpicky, right.
It says installed provide illumination to the laundry area shall
be permitted to be installed outside the laundry area where
a closet houses the laundry equipment. Okay, So the key
on that is that it's the laundry equipment is actually
in a space that would be more appropriate to call
a closet that type of thing, and it's very common
to do that. And so they're saying, look, I'm not
I don't have to put the lighting outlet in there.
I don't have to put the control switch in there, right,
the switch or wall mounted. I don't have to put
it in there, but I can do it outside of
that area. Now, one of the people on the code
making panel during that time said, well, okay, I get it.
Well what's the distance? So could it be ten feet away,
fifteen feet away within the mediate vicinity? I don't you know?
You get what I'm saying. Now we address this, uh
in other areas for equipment. Now that says it'd be
at or near the equipment for the illumination. And also
this is gonna doesn't job with that, So this is
his own little thing here. But we did don't give
a distance on this, so it can be argumented him
where is the switch? Where is the lighting outlet? Right?
It just says it can be outside of the launder area. Well,
how far outside of it? How far away can it be? Right?
So that's going to be obviously something that's going to
get cleared up in the obviously next edition that'll be
that'll be cleared up. I'm sure somebody will submit public
input in order to put a distance on that. But anyway, Uh,
that is a change. That's a new exception number three
that was added. Now you have the two item two,
which is called additional locations, right, and so in here
it's essentially the same whereas it is going to require
there was a one in a two previous league. And
again we're talking about hallways for at least one listed
or at least one lighting outlet controlled by a wall
switch or listed wallmount of control device. And obviously it
used to say just a listed wall mount of control.
Obviously we've added wall switch back in there. Okay, makes sense,
I mean that should make sense at the least, right,
so where at least it's where we're at right now.
And then of course we have item number two, which
is the dwelling unit and again attached garages detached garages
with electric power, at least one exterior lighting outlet controlled
by a wall switch or listed wallmount of control device
shall be installed to provide illumination on the exterior side
of the outdoor entrance or exits which grade level access.
And it reminds us again that the vehicle doors in
a garage are not considered as an outdoor entrance or exit.
This is low hanging fruit. Now, this is not a
this is not a big change. I'm just saying that
the low hanging fruit on exams is if I have
a garage and it is an attached garage, and I
have a garage door, but the no other way to
get into that garage and my house, my previous house
was like that. You just you walk through the garage doors.
But that wasn't considering an entrance, so I didn't need
lights or illumination for my driveway or the garage door
wasn't required by code. Now it had it obviously, because
who's gonna do that, right, I mean, if you're gonna
put in a put in a garage door, I mean
you're gonna you're gonna put in lights, right, I mean
it's right. I mean wouldn't everybody. But the code doesn't
require that those are not considered entrance or exit locations
for that. And the vehicle door garage door, no matter
how much far it spans, or how many garage doors
you have, or that's the typical way that you enter
into it or whatnot, did not trigger it. Now again,
I get a lot of people that say, well, I
don't do the minimum, Well, then you do you? I
mean I wouldn't either. I would put illuminair out there.
It just makes sense to me, but you're not required
to do that. Now, if you have a door there
that is an entrance in an egress, then it's going
to have to have illumination. Now, could the floodlights also
do serve double duty and not only light up the
driveway but also illuminate the entrance and egress door. Yes, could,
and that would be fine and nothing nothing, nothing brain
surgery ish about that right now. Let's see here also
the next all you see is three when it's talking
about interior stairs when you have six and more risers
between floors. All it did there was add the wall
switching there as well. Made sense, just added that in there.
And then item number four says diming control of lighting
outlets installed in accordance with two ten dot seventy A
two three uh, and again A two three was the
one we're talking about. Interior steps, okay, the stepping the
entryway stairway, that type of thing. It just reminds. It says,
dimmer controls of lighting outs installed in accordance with two
ten dot seventy eight to two three shall not be
permitted unless the listed control device can provide diming controls
to maximum brightness at each control location for the interior
stairway illumination. That's just common sense, right. So if you
want to use dimmers on those lights that happened to
illuminate the interior stairways, that's up to you. But if
you're going to do those DIMI controls, then you have
to what have listed control devices that can't provide DIMI
controls to maximum brightenment brightness at each control location for
the interior, so you're end up putting them at all locations.
You can't just dim it from one and then once
it's dimmed down and then you get to the other
locations and you can't raise the illumination back up. That
don't make sense. Okay, that would be like my you know,
my son putting it at the lowest level with the
first floor and then going to the second floor and
then leaving it that way and I couldn't turn it
back up, and then Daddy comes out and trips down
the stairwell and breaks his neck. That's probably what he'd want,
but that's not what he's gonna get. You get me.
That's a shitty analogy, but it is what it is.
So I figured, you know, why not, you know, throw
it out there. The next one is B, which again
that is just dealing with guestrooms and gains sweets. All
they did was added the wall switches to that, so
that's all that really changed there. And then lastly C
deals with all occupancies. Okay, now this is not just
specific to one family dwelling. This is all occupancies that
have addicts in under floor spaces, utility rooms, and basements. Okay,
so again make it clear, this is not just for dwelling.
That's where people kind of lose sight. That's why it
says all occupancies. It applies to dwellings, but it is
all occupancies. It says for addicts and under floor spaces,
utility rooms, and basements at least one lighting outlet containing
a switch or control by a wall switch or listed
wallmount of control device. And by the way, when it
says containing a switch, we're talking something like a key list.
You have a switch that's built right into the lamp holder. Okay,
it's part of it right or controlled by a wall
switch or listed wallmunt of control device, depending on your installation.
Your application shall be installed where these spaces are used
for storage or contain equipment requiring servicing, and shall comply
with the following. So if you're going to store things
down there, utility rooms, storage, underfloor space storage, attic storage,
provided your addict this design for it and handles the
loads all that kind of stuff. So in those areas,
I need to have switches. And whether it's a wall
switch or a listed wallmount of control device, or the
switch is integral to the lighting outlet itself, either way,
I got to have it. Now, there's three pieces here.
Number one says a point of control shall be at
each entry that permits access to the attic and under
floor space, utility room and basement. You know what is
you know what is significant with that? You're thinking, well,
what's what's what? Why is that significant? All right, Well,
it's it's not really a change. It's just making it
very clear and breaking it out into points one to
two and a three instead of it being one long paragraph.
It's it's now made clearer to understand. And I think
y'all already understand these. But again, and for the effort
of people learning, if I have multiple interests into that
attic and irony is that I do in my house,
I've got two separate attic accesses in my house. Makes sense,
So I'm going to have lumin air, I'm gonna have lighting,
I'm gonna have lighting outlets, I'm gonna have switches. I'm
gonna have that at each one of those accesses. Makes sense.
But that would go to the same for utility room,
and that would go the same for a basement. Uh.
And again, people, I don't store shit in my basement.
Come on, yeah you do, So anyway you got you
would have to have the switches. Okay. Next, it says,
where a lighting outlet is installed for equipment requiring servicing,
the lighting outlet shall be installed at or near the equipment, right,
So you could have lighting outlets in this space, Okay,
but this makes it very clear. And again it's not
that we're talking like ooh, is that a change. No,
it said it previously. It says where the lighting outlet
is installed for equipment. It says the lighting outlet shall
be installed at ornither. That's not new. It's just that
it was broken up now in a one to two
and a three. That's all, so it's worth mentioning. But again,
I want to be common sense because I do see
this a lot from people who say, look, I've got
a light I've got a basement, right and I've got
this equipment that gets serviced, and the lighting outlet is
more towards, you know, one side of the basement. Maybe
I don't have one on the other side where the
actually equipment is. So it's got to be installed at
the equipment or near the equipment. Now we don't have
a definition of near. It doesn't say immediately adjacent. I
would like it to say that. It would be nice
if it said installed at or immediately adjacent the equipment.
Maybe that's a public input. Anybody out there wants to
submit a public input. But right now it just says
installed ad or near the equipment. That's gonna be hj call.
But let's use a little common sense here. If it's
on the other side of the room and I'm standing
at it, and my whole body is blocking the light
to get on the piece of equipment that I'm working on,
and if my ass has got to go get a
flashlight to work on it in a basement that has
lumina airs in it, that's a problem. So let's not
let the NEC dictate that. Let's use common sense and say, shit,
I need lighting, and I need to make sure that
I and anybody in the future that may be working
on that equipment it's going to have enough illumination to
work on that equipment. That's a common sense thing, and
I would hope that we don't have to venture down
that path of common sense versus the code being a
minimum safety standard. But I guess sometimes I wonder. I wonder. Okay,
Now Number three in this scenario is talking about controlling
of the luminair in that space or the lighting outlet
in that space. It says control by automatic means shall
not be permitted. Okay, So this is like a motion
sensor things like that shall not be permitted to control
all illumination in addicts under floor spaces or control utility
rooms unless a manual means to bypass the control is provided.
So if you have a switch that is designed with
a manual override, right, you can manually override it. You can.
Usually these have a button you can push on it,
but it also has an occupancy sensor or something like that.
So you know, the cold goal here is we don't
want to be in this area working on something, and
you're working and something may block you from the sensor
and then the damn light goes out in the middle
of your working on something. So you have to have
the ability. You can't fix stupid, but you have to
have the ability for somebody to turn it on and
override it and stay on. Now, what's interesting with this
language is it says it shall not be permitted to
control all illumination at You can control some of the
illumination in that attic, right, or that yeah attic in
under floor space utility room, and just not all of it.
And I would say common sense would dictate you don't
put the automation on the illuminair that's supplying option too.
I mean item number two, which is for when you're
servicing a piece of equipment. You're not gonna put that
one on the automated Okay, automatic means that would be
common sense, you would think, you would think, But in
a world where we're trying to reduce the energy usage
and if nobody's in there, just turn off all the
lighting and YadA, YadA, YadA, I get it. So if
you want to control all the luminaiirs in that space,
by automatic means means you're going to have a means
to bypass it, be able to push a button on
the device and the light stays on and it kind
of bypasses. The automatic means occupancy sensor, motion sensors, all
that kind of stuff. Right, So that's that's in a
nutshell what it's talking about. All right. So hopefully that's
been a decent analysis for you. We're gonna be doing
a lot of these, and as you know, my goal
is to make things easy to understand, even if it's
you know, something that most of us think is as
simple as two ten seventy And I'll have my haters
out there that say, Paul, you turn that into a
thirty minute podcast when you could have explained all that
in two minutes. Well, you know, get over it. That's
how I do it. So you don't have to listen.
If you don't want to listen, Okay, I'm not here
for you. I'm here for people that want to learn. Okay,
all right, So that's it, folks. Hopefully you got something
out of day's episode. Till next time, stay safe, God Bless,
and we will catch you on an upcoming episode of
Master the NEC podcast. Take care, God Bless.
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Mm hmm