Back in the July 2000 issue of Engineered Systems I devoted this column to the National Electrical Code (NEC) and, among other things, mentioned the difference between the intent of the code as a minimum set of standards for safety and its frequent use as a design manual. The fact that this distinction continues to be lost on owners and engineers was brought home to me by a recent project experience, and prompted the decision to editorialize a bit this month.
In reviewing plans for a mission-critical facility, I recommended a change to the design of the grounding system to bring it in line with design practices intended to protect critical, expensive equipment from extensive damage under ground fault conditions. After reviewing the recommendation, the owner, contractor, and engineer (the latter were one and the same, as it was a design-build project) informed me that the design would stand because the recommended changes were not required by the NEC. This may only mean that I failed to make a convincing argument for the need, or that the owner was reluctant to spend additional money to make the change, but invoking compliance with the code as an argument against bettering a design always bothers me.