sundance-communications.com/forum Forums Wiring - Telecom Carriers - Trunks & Services Cabling Telephones Systems Wiring Plenum in Richmond hospital??

I am trying to find info on local code for Richmond VA about what the requirement is for pulling cable in a Hospital EVEN if it is not plenum ceiling!

Any one have any info???

Richmond has some very strange requirements and yes, I've been forced to use plenum cable even in non-plenum environments. I think that a big part of the problem is that the chief electrical inspector there used to be the city's fire marshal. They are very strict and there isn't much getting around them.

I'd make the call to see what they require. Here despite what the elec inspector says most of the work has to be inspected by the fire dept and yeah they often require things above and beyond the NEC. I have taken to just using plenum in anything commercial.

We had a similar situation in NYC with the WTC. The AHJ there was the Port Authority; they required all communication cable to be in pipe (end-to-end) AND to be plenum.

Whatever the AHJ wants.

Sam

The University of Kentucky campus is the same way Sam.

Mike -

Nice to know they're crazy everywhere. But at least their craziness creates more work - and not less - like I see so much of these days.

Sam

It was the dangest thing I ever saw.
4inch e.m.t. trunks with 24 x 24 pull boxes every 75ft and could not have more than a 260 degree bend between pull boxes.

I wish every job was like that - as long as they're willing to pay for it.

Years ago I wired Fordham University. A Nightmare. They wanted every cable concealed. If it couldn't be concealed it had to be in wiremold.

We put in 16,000' of wiremold on the job. Some of the buildings were 150 years old.

A Nightmare.

4" with PBs every 75' sounds like a dream.

Sam

Richmond has some very strange requirements and yes, I've been forced to use plenum cable even in non-plenum environments.

Same here, I have had to do this in Charlottesville Virginia when a Richmond firm was in control of the building!

Years ago we did a job on a reservation school where everything was piped. It was somewhere near 1500 drops. The building was all precast with no interior class rooms. Classrooms were nothing more than office furniture walls. It was two weeks of running conduit before we even started pulling lines.