Hey Guys,

I'm about to bid on a fairly large job for a new customer. Part of it involves providing service for the elevator emergency phones, and that is what I am worried about. There are two issues here:

1. How does the cable get from the hoist room to the elevator car, or should I just provide some sort of termination in the hoist room and leave the rest to the elevator guys?

2. This is in a heavy industrial building that is fairly old. As a result, cable will need to be run along the ceiling and through THICK concrete floors or walls at some points. Obviously I'll be using plenum rated cable for this. There are several other issues through:

- Will I need to use fire block for the holes? If so, please indicate what products you like to use.

- Should I insert conduit into my drilled holes to prevent cable abrasion? (methinks this is a "vibrating building" from heavy forklifts and such)

Any and all comments are appreciated. I'd especially like to know what the NEC says about fire blocking.

Thanks,
Jason

I wouldn't lose any sleep over this, none of that is your job. It all has to be taken care of by the company that installs the elevators. All you need do is provide a jack in the elevator machine room.

-Hal

I don't know about Canadian codes, but here in the US, all wiring within the elevator machine room must be contained within EMT (conduit). While your responsibility to bring the circuit in usually ends at the elevator control panel, make sure that if conduit is required in your area that it is provided by others or factored into your price.

Jason -

Over the years, most of the elevator phones that I did required a termination in the elevator machine room. There were quite a few however that required a termination at the "mid-point box". This was a box that was piped to the middle of the run (For a 12 story elevator, the box was on the 6th floor). Sometimes it was out in the hall outside the elevators. Sometimes it was inside the shaft. Connecting to it meant a trip riding the top of the car with the elevator constructor who controlled the car with a hand held unit. A little scary, and more then a little dangerous. Where the termination ended up was determined by where the elevator "traveller" cable terminated. It was apparently cheaper to have a traveler that termed in the middle (made for a shorter cable).

In some of the situations where I had to terminate in the elevator machine room I was required to land my cables on a pair of screw terminals in their equipment. Because I had to run through the trough with the rest of the elevator (high voltage) wiring, I had to convert from Cat 3 to 16 AWG Thhn.

Plenum rated cable is ONLY required in Plenum (air return) situations. You probably won't need it if there's no drop ceiling. Non-Plenum is much cheaper too.

There are a variety of firestopping materials. 3M makes a whole line as I recall. There are bags, foam, sealants - all sorts of things, depending whether it's a large or small hole.

We always sleeve our cable running through a wall. A short piece of pipe with bushings on both ends works fine. We usually lock it in place with a piece of kindorf and a strap.

I don't have a current copy of the NEC, I 'll see if i can get hold of one. I did a load of work in Verizon COs and they were even stricter then the NEC.

Sam

Thanks for all the replies guys.


Sam,

I like the looks of the Kindorf product. Had seen it used, but didn't know where to get it till now. THANKS!


Working on the proposal as we speak.