Edie’s t, a disclaimer: While the sharp eye can identify the location as a Home Depot store, this challenging arrangement is common in many situations: power drops to pre-fab offices on factory floors, cooler banks in supermarkets, and powering portable / seasonal displays are common examples.
Let’s take the last picture first: the polling place. Here there hang numerous ‘drop cords’ from the ceiling. The issue / complication arises from the use of a drop (or suspended) ceiling. You want the cord to drop as straight as possible to your temporary equipment. Maybe the next time you’ll want to place the gear a few feet over.
The common solution is to have a coil of cord laying above the ceiling. To drop the cord a tiny notch is made on the edge of the ceiling tile. This practice was pretty explicitly banned in the early 2000’s when we were precluded from passing cords through any sort of partition (Ahem, dishwashers, anyone?)
The “compliant” method of mounting a box to the ceiling became questionable when the Code then went on to ban supporting / attaching anything to the suspended ceiling. Good heavens: there are entire product lines of UL-listed components designed for ceiling grids! I wouldn’t know where to find an engineer to certify my “modification” of the ceiling.
Perhaps this is why suspended ceilings became unfashionable, to be replaced by the “open” framing now common to places like Home Depot — a design that presents its own challenges.
With the bottom flanges of the roof trusses typically just more than twenty feet up, and the trusses themselves yards apart, constructing any sort of framework quickly become quite the project — even with strut. The “drop” location is often defined by the placement of architectural elements (like the paint counter pictured) or the design of the production machinery served. That’s how industrial locations end up having all manner of pipes on the floor. Do you want to cut a trench in the concrete floor?
Let’s look at another problem: right angles. If you’ve ever used a shower where the curtain wrapped around a corner you’ve seen how weak that structure is. We create the same issue when we cantilever pipe off a rafter then turn it ninety degrees to drop to the floor. The result may look pretty, but has all the strength of a wet noodle.
Finally, we look at the elephant in the room: inspection. These issues are often found on the various modifications that take place after the inspector has left and the permit closed. There are no inspections.
