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2023 Code Year: NEC 427

2023 Code Year NEC 427

National Electrical Code Article 427 dictates heating equipment for pipelines & vessels electrical safety. Learn about its rules for ground fault protection.

What is NEC 427?

National Electrical Code Article 427 explains the different safety requirements involved with fixed electrical heating equipment that is used to deter freezing in pipelines and on vessels. This section of the Code details the best practices for installation, use for different types of heating elements, operation, protection, and more. There is a lot of important information involved in the text, but we are going to look specifically at the subsection pertaining to ground fault protection, NEC 427.22.

What is NEC 427.22?

NEC Article 427.22 states that the heating equipment for pipelines & vessels is required to have ground fault protection for the heat tracing or heating panels (either or both) that are involved with the system. It doesn’t state that it requires Class A protection (5 +/-1 mA), so best practice would indicate to use ground fault protection equipment with a trip level at or below 30 mA, to provide protection to personnel while also accounting for stray current leakage that is common with this type of application (due to its heating elements). There are cases, which are rare, where there is no ground fault protection required that have to meet 2 conditions, which are:

1.) The maintenance & supervision of the system can only be done by a qualified person 2.) The continued operation of the circuit is required for the equipment/process to safely operate.

If these 2 conditions are met, it is also required to have an alarm that indicates when a ground fault is present.

What does this Code mean?

National Electrical Code Article 427 details the safety standards for a very hazardous type of application, so it makes sense that its ground fault protection information is regimented as well. Although this heating equipment isn’t very compatible with Class A protection, it makes sure that the personnel coming into contact with the equipment still have a level protection from hazardous electrical leakage by requiring some form of ground fault protection equipment, such as an ELCI solution from North Shore Safety.

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