Are Fire Alarm Panels required to be grounded? 1

[LGENE]

NFPA 70(NEC) Art 760.9 was a quote that someone gave me that stated that system grounding was not required for Fire Alarm systems of 50 volts or less. When I looked in my 99 version I could not find this reference. Some Fire Panels have step down transformers outside the panel and others have them inside the panel steping them down to 24 VDC. A fire tech once told us that in certain parts of the Western US it does more harm than good to ground low voltage panels because lightning actually comes from the ground. He told us that because of the high salt content in ground you can read voltage from ground rods. Is there any truth to this code reference or to the statement about more harm than good ?

 

[rbulsara]

Judging from amount and ype of list of questions you have posted...it seems that you are trying to avoid reading code books.

Answers to all of your quesitnos are answered in NEC (NFPA 70), NFPA 72, NFPA 101 and depending upon your state you need to refer to appropirate Building Codes and its ammendments, as adopted by your state.

Get and Read up on ICC/ANSI A117.1-1998 previously CABO/ANSI A117.

Some states have specific elevator codes too.
Some questions are answered by the manufacturers.

This forum is not a substitute for doing hardwork by yourself. Plus you are the one who is getting paid to the job!!

 

[LGENE]

rbulsara,

Thank you for your post and advice along with the code quotes. I just found this valuable site and I have had several issues come up in the past few years that I have kept track of and I wanted to see and get some new takes and advice on these issues that seem to come up over and over. Sometimes code interpretation is different and many times new codes are not implemented in a timely manner. I just got the new IFC 2003 and I am studying it as well as the NFPA codes. Staying on top of these is quite a job along with all of our other responsibilities and I do intend on continuing to study code as well as the local adopted codes. I will take your advice and I appreciate your comments.

 

[rbulsara]

I am really glad to hear your committment..good luck!
And by the way thanks for the star....

 

[LGENE]

I did some looking in the codes and found NFPA 70 (NEC) chap 3-5 have to do with wiring and 6-8 give some exceptions for specialty wiring and Article 250 also lists some exceptions and Art 760 also talks about power supplies and grouding them. The way that I read these codes, Fire Alarm panels that have 120 volt coming into them directly need to be grounded because they have Non-power limited wire in and power limited wire out for the Fire Alarm Circuits. An example of a commercial Fire System that is powered from a plug in transformer off of a wall outlet may have exceptions to the grounding depending on whether it is a class I, II or III transformer using the wall screw etc... affected by low voltage requirements. Article 760 does talk about systems of 50V or less. Let me know if you agree with this.