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.

The location of. Electrical rooms and mechanical electrical and plumbing mep spaces are often an afterthought when it comes to building design and planning either relegated to locations that are left over or deemed undesirable for other planning purposes. For example an equipment room with a gas furnace input rating of 500 000 btuh would require a 1 hour fire barrier separation. 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.

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. Every building design should check table 509 to see if any incidental separation is required. Typically the main electrical room has walls fire rated at 1 hour. Higher fire ratings of the rooms per nec article 450 and increased ventilation.

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.