On 4/4/2011 1:40 AM, James Maynard wrote: > Do you know, Jim, whether the definition of "premises" in the NEC would > include an entire marina? Not the boats kept in the marina, but the > wiring of such structures as floating docks?
I'm not enough of an expert on NEC that I could offer a detailed opinion on that in the context of a marina, which is a rather special use, for the reasons you and others have pointed out. BUT -- the generally accepted, broad definition of "premises" in the context of NEC would be a conventional land-based home or business. It would apply to the LAND wiring, and of wiring connected to LAND-based wiring -- for example, mains power outlets on the dock. Such outlets would be required to be protected by a GFCI, which acts as a circuit breaker and cuts off power if leakage current.is detected. GFCI's are required to kill power if the leakage current exceeds 5 mA, which is the current at which electrical shocks can begin to hurt you. They work simply by comparing the currents on the phase (hot) and neutral conductors. If land-based power were brought onto a boat, the parts of NEC with which I'm familiar would seem to require outlets on the boat for land-based 120V or 240V power to be GFCI-protected (or a GFCI-like mains breaker, which is widely used in the UK for premises wiring, where they are called a Residual Current Detector, or RCD). There's a discussion of this on page 22 of my Power and Grounding tutorial. 73, Jim Brown K9YC ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:Elecraft@mailman.qth.net This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html
