ECN Forum Forums Code Related Discussion NEC & other Code issues face-up receptacles

406.4(E) states: "Receptacles shall not be installed in a face-up position in countertops or similar work surfaces". Is there a similar rule for other environments? I was in a testing facility/lab portion of an industrial building today that contained numerous workstations with receptacles placed in the face-up position. A member of the maintenance crew said a previous electrician informed him that having receptacles mounted in this fashion was against code. I informed this person that the electrician was wrong and that the code sited only applied to dwellings. Was I wrong?

many floor receptacles fare no better than said 'work surface' triple

next time your in the local school check them out....

This section does not designate types of occupancy, so this is a general requirement, including laboratory surfaces.

Pierre

PCBelarge, did you read the NEC article I sited? In its entirety it reads:

"406.4 (E) Receptacles in Countertops and Similar Work Surfaces in Dwelling Units. Receptacles shall not be installed in a face-up position in countertops or similar work surfaces."

As you can see, this section of the code CLEARLY states "DWELLING UNITS". This is not a “general requirement, including laboratory surfaces”. Thus I know 406.4(E) cannot be sited for code compiancy in an industrial lab. I guess my question was, is there somewhere else in the code that would render the aforementioned installation incorrect.

I should have printed both lines of 406.4(E) in my first post to be clear. It didn’t cross my mind that anyone would make an inference based solely on the one sentence I extracted and placed on the board.


[This message has been edited by triple (edited 10-08-2003).]