Electical Contractor

National Fire Protection Association members will vote on the 2010 edition of NFPA 72, National Fire Alarm Code, at the June NFPA conference in Chicago. If the members accept and the Standards Council approves, it will be available for adoption this fall.

This is the second of two articles that provides a glimpse of the significant changes to NFPA 70E—2009. The first appears in the January 2009 issue. This article reviews the balance of Chapter 1 along with changes in Chapters 2 and 3.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) requires that employers covered under the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 provide employees an environment that is free from recognized hazards that cause, or are likely to cause, death or serious physical harm (OSHA 29 CFR 1926 and

This trade depends on National Electrical Code compliance, especially where it involves device placement and connectivity.

The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) released findings from a report on U.S. fire loss for 2007. According to this overview of the U.S. fire experience, fires killed one person every two and a half hours last year.

For many years, the audibility and intelligibility of fire alarm signals were ignored. Traditionally, a contractor or designer would put one audible/visible appliance above each manual fire alarm box (pull station) and maybe one or two more in the hallway.

In the decades since the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission determined that electrical fires are disproportionately frequent in homes more than 40 years old, a generation of houses has aged into the danger zone.

As most contractors know, installing fire alarm systems is a code-driven business. One would think the requirements for fire alarm system installations are the same for all commercial and government buildings. While that may be the case for some government buildings, it certainly is not universal.

Reliable, dependable fire detection depends on electrical contractors (ECs) installing the correct cable. Quality is just as important as wire gauge. The internal and external characteristics of the product must fit the application.