Using National Electrical Code Article 422 to Keep Appliances (and Families) Safe
Three Key Changes in the 2020 National Electrical Code That Help Make Kitchens Safer for Families
How to Make Grilled Cheese with a Clothing Iron
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John A. Paulson Center
The New York University Paulson Center 181 Mercer dormitory is a state-of-the-art residence hall located in the heart of Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood. The building was designed by COOKFOX architects and completed in 2020.
The Paulson 181 Mercer dormitory is a 23-story building that houses more than 700 students in a mix of singles, doubles, triples, and quads. The building features a number of amenities designed to enhance the student living experience, including a fitness center, music practice rooms, a game room, and a rooftop terrace with stunning views of the city.
One of the most unique features of the Paulson 181 Mercer dormitory is its focus on sustainability and green design. The building is expected to achieve LEED Gold certification, which recognizes buildings that are designed and constructed to minimize their environmental impact. Some of the sustainable features of the building include a green roof, rainwater harvesting system, and energy-efficient lighting and HVAC systems.
The $1.2 billion John A. Paulson Center — which opened in January 2023 — provides all of the occupancy classes for the “university without a quad”.
*In 2005, Paulson began investing heavily in credit default swaps, which are essentially insurance contracts that pay out if a particular debt instrument defaults. He used these swaps to bet against the subprime mortgage market, which he believed was overvalued and ripe for collapse. When the housing market crashed in 2008, Paulson’s bets paid off in a big way, earning him billions of dollars in profits.
Paulson has also been involved in other successful trades, including investments in gold and banking stocks. However, his bet against the subprime mortgage market remains his most famous and lucrative trade.
Student Accommodation
Harvard University Dormitory Room | Smithsonian Museum | Thomas Warren Sears Collection
Today we break down public consultation notices for literature that sets the standard of care for the safety and sustainability of student housing in K-12 prep schools, colleges and universities. We deal with off-campus housing in a separate session because it involves local safety and sustainability regulations; most of which are derived from residential housing codes and standards.
The topic cuts across many disciplines and standards setting organization bibliographies. We usually set our bearing with the following titles:
2021 International Building Code: Section 310 Residential Group R-2 + related titles such as the IFC, IMC, IPC, IECC
2021 Fire Code: Chapter 6 Classification of Occupancy + related titles such as NFPA 70B, NFPA 72 and NFPA 110
2023 National Electrical Code: Articles 210-230 + related Articles 110 and 410
ASHRAE 90.1 Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings: Annex G
Like any other classification of real property the average cost for room and board for a public university student dormitory depends on several factors such as the location of the university, the type of dormitory, and the meal plan options. According to the College Board, the average cost of room and board for the 2021-2022 academic year at a public four-year in-state institution was $11,620. However, this figure can range from around $7,000 to $16,000 or more depending on the specific institution and its location. It’s important to note that this average cost only includes the basic meal plan and standard dormitory room. Students may also have additional costs for a larger or more luxurious dorm room, a premium meal plan, or other expenses such as laundry or parking fees.
According to ring Rider Levett Bucknall, a global property and construction consultancy firm, the average construction cost for a student housing facility in the United States in 2021 was around $202 per square foot. However, this figure can range from around $150 to $300 per square foot or more depending on the specific project. Life cycle cost for new facilities with tricked out net-zero gadgets is hard to come by at the moment.
Because money flows freely through this domain we examine scalable densities and the nature of money flow patterns; partially tracked by the Electronic Municipal Market Access always on the standing agenda of our Finance colloquium.
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National Institute of Standards & Technology: The Character of Residential Cooktop Fires
Deserted College Dorms Sow Trouble for $14 Billion in Muni Bonds
Here are a few pros and cons of private sector construction of university-owned student housing:
Pros:
- Increased housing availability: Private sector developers may be able to build more student housing units than a university could build on its own, which can help to alleviate the shortage of on-campus housing for students.
- Faster construction: Private developers may be able to complete construction projects faster than universities, which can help to reduce the amount of time that students must wait for new housing options.
- Reduced financial burden on the university: The cost of building and maintaining student housing can be significant, and private sector developers may be willing to bear some of these costs. This can help to reduce the financial burden on the university and free up resources for other initiatives.
- Professional management: Private developers may have more experience managing large housing projects and may be able to provide more professional management services than a university could provide on its own.
Cons:
- Higher costs for students: Private developers may charge higher rents than a university would charge for student housing, which can make housing less affordable for some students.
- Reduced university control: Private developers may have different priorities than a university would have when it comes to building and managing student housing. This can lead to a reduced level of control for the university over housing quality, management, and policies.
- Potential conflicts of interest: Private developers may be more focused on making a profit than on meeting the needs of students or the university, which can create potential conflicts of interest.
- Less transparency: Private developers may not be subject to the same level of transparency and accountability as a university would be when it comes to housing policies, decision-making processes, and financial management.
It’s important to note that these pros and cons may vary depending on the specific circumstances and context of each individual university and private sector partnership.
Uniform Plumbing Code
“Niagara” 1857 Frederic Edwin Church
Although the 2024 Revision is substantially complete there are a number of technical and administrative issues to be resolved before the final version is released for public use. Free access to the most recent edition is linked below.
TENTATIVE – 2027 UPC/UMC CODE DEVELOPMENT TIMELINE
Report on Comments for the 2024 Uniform Plumbing Code
Life Safety Code
The Life Safety Code addresses those construction, protection, and occupancy features necessary to minimize danger to life from the effects of fire, including smoke, heat, and toxic gases created during a fire. It is widely incorporated by reference into public safety statutes; typically coupled with the consensus products of the International Code Council. It is a mighty document — one of the NFPA’s leading titles — so we deal with it in pieces; consulting it for decisions to be made for the following:
(1) Determination of the occupancy classification in Chapters 12 through 42.
(2) Determination of whether a building or structure is new or existing.
(3) Determination of the occupant load.
(4) Determination of the hazard of contents.
There are emergent issues — such as active shooter response, integration of life and fire safety systems on the internet of small things — and recurrent issues such as excessive rehabilitation and conformity criteria and the ever-expanding requirements for sprinklers and portable fire extinguishers with which to reckon. It is never easy telling a safety professional paid to make a market for his product or service that it is impossible to be alive and safe. It is even harder telling the dean of a department how much it will cost to bring the square-footage under his stewardship up to the current code.
The 2021 edition is the current edition and is accessible below:
NFPA 101 Life Safety Code Free Public Access
Public input on the 2027 Revision will be received until June 4, 2024.
Since the Life Safety Code is one of the most “living” of living documents — the International Building Code and the National Electric Code also move continuously — we can start anywhere and anytime and still make meaningful contributions to it. We have been advocating in this document since the 2003 edition in which we submitted proposals for changes such as:
• A student residence facility life safety crosswalk between NFPA 101 and the International Building Code
• Refinements to Chapters 14 and 15 covering education facilities (with particular attention to door technologies)
• Identification of an ingress path for rescue and recovery personnel toward electric service equipment installations.
• Risk-informed requirement for installation of grab bars in bathing areas
• Modification of the 90-minute emergency lighting requirements rule for small buildings and for fixed interval testing
• Modification of emergency illumination fixed interval testing
• Table 7.3.1 Occupant Load revisions
• Harmonization of egress path width with European building codes
There are others. It is typically difficult to make changes to stabilized standard though some of the concepts were integrated by the committee into other parts of the NFPA 101 in unexpected, though productive, ways. Example transcripts of proposed 2023 revisions to the education facility chapter is linked below:
Chapter 14 Public Input Report: New Educational Occupancies
Educational and Day Care Occupancies: Second Draft Public Comments with Responses Report
Since NFPA 101 is so vast in its implications we list a few of the sections we track, and can drill into further, according to client interest:
Chapter 3: Definitions
Chapter 7: Means of Egress
Chapter 12: New Assembly Occupancies
Chapter 13: Existing Assembly Occupancies
Chapter 16 Public Input Report: New Day-Care Facilities
Chapter 17 Public Input Report: Existing Day Care Facilities
Chapter 18 Public Input Report: New Health Care Facilities
Chapter 19 Public Input Report: Existing Health Care Facilities
Chapter 28: Public Input Report: New Hotels and Dormitories
Chapter 29: Public Input Report: Existing Hotels and Dormitories
Chapter 43: Building Rehabilitation
Annex A: Explanatory Material
As always we encourage front-line staff, facility managers, subject matter experts and trade associations to participate directly in the NFPA code development process (CLICK HERE to get started)
NFPA 101 is a cross-cutting title so we maintain it on the agenda of our several colloquia —Housing, Prometheus, Security and Pathways colloquia. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.
Issue: [18-90]
Category: Fire Safety, Public Safety
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Josh Elvove, Joe DeRosier, Marcelo Hirschler
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When lives are at stake, alternative approaches are welcome. #LifeSafety #AlternativeApproaches #Code #NFPA101 @NFPA
https://t.co/JvWyyZtuLP— ANSI (@ansidotorg) December 20, 2018
Reliability
This paper introduced the concept of reliability theory and established a mathematical framework for analyzing system reliability in terms of lumped parameters. It defined important concepts such as coherent systems, minimal cut sets, and minimal path sets, which are still widely used in reliability engineering.
IEEE Recommended Practice for the Design of Reliable Industrial and Commercial Power Systems
“Railroad Sunset” | Edward HopperWe are tooling up to update the failure rate tables of IEEE 493 Design of Reliable Industrial and Commercial Power Systems; collaborating with project leaders but contributing to an essential part of the data design engineers use for scaling their power system designs. The project is in its early stages. We are formulating approaches about how to gather data for assemble a statistically significant data set.
Today we introduce the project which will require harvesting power reliability statistics from any and all educational settlements willing to share their data. As the links before demonstrate, we have worked in this domain for many years.
Join us with the login credentials at the upper right of our home page.
“On the Mathematical Theory of Risk and Some Problems in Distribution-Free Statistics” by Frank Proschan (1963): This paper introduced the concept of increasing failure rate (IFR) and decreasing failure rate (DFR) distributions, which are crucial in reliability modeling and analysis.
“Reliability Models for Multiple Failures in Redundant Systems” by John F. Meyer (1965): This paper addressed the problem of reliability analysis for redundant systems, which are systems with multiple components designed to provide backup in case of failure.
“Reliability of Systems in Series and in Parallel” by A. T. Bharucha-Reid (1960): This work analyzed the reliability of systems composed of components arranged in series and parallel configurations, which are fundamental building blocks of more complex systems.
“A Stochastic Model for the Reliability of Modular Software Systems” by John E. Gaffney, Jr. and Thomas A. Dueck (1980): This paper introduced one of the earliest models for software reliability, extending the concepts of reliability theory to the field of software engineering.
“Redundancy Techniques for Computing Systems” by John von Neumann (1956): This report by the pioneering computer scientist John von Neumann explored the use of redundancy techniques, such as triple modular redundancy, to improve the reliability of com
puting systems.
How Engineers are Strengthening the Electrical Power Grid
How does the electrical grid respond to a crisis?
If the power goes out after a thunderstorm, utility crews are on the job within hours to restore service and get the lights back on. Most electric utilities in the U.S. have a reputation for reliability and recovery from situations like this. It has been noticed as planners began thinking about increased natural disasters brought on by population migration patterns, manmade interference due to malicious cyber-attacks, and the instability brought about by adding large quantities of renewable energy.
At North Carolina State University, The Future Renewable Electric Energy Delivery and Management (FREEDOM) Systems Engineering Research Center was created through funding from the National Science Foundation in 2008 to modernize the electrical grid to accommodate sustainable energy, such as wind and solar power. The Freedom Center has been involved in developing online tools for assessing vulnerabilities to address cyber-physical security called distributed grid intelligence. The hope is that smart microgrids with sensors embedded throughout the system might be more resilient to failure and easier to bring back online and large multi-state electric grids. But the emerging smart grid, together with distributed renewable energy such as rooftop solar, presents a new set of challenges to resilience. The Smart Grid involves more distributed energy down to the home level. That kind of penetration adds a level of vulnerability to a cyber threat. Engineers will certainly have to pay attention to that as the grid gets smarter.
Emergency and Standby Power Systems
Sporty weather season in the United States inspires a revisit of best practice for designing, building and maintaining the systems that provide limited electricity when the primary source fails. We have been active in the development of this and related titles for decades and have presented several proposals to the technical committee. Public response on the Second Draft of the 2025 revision will be received until March 27, 2024.
Electrical building, World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago (1892)
FREE ACCESS to the 2022 Edition of NFPA 110 Standard for Emergency and Standby Power Systems
The scope of NFPA 110 and NFPA 111 are close coupled and summarized below:
NFPA 110 Standard for Emergency and Standby Power Systems. This standard contains requirements covering the performance of emergency and standby power systems providing an alternate source of electrical power to loads in buildings and facilities in the event that the primary power source fails.
NFPA 111 Stored Electrical Energy for Emergency and Standby Power Systems. This standard shall cover performance requirements for stored electrical energy systems providing an alternate source of electrical power in buildings and facilities in the event that the normal electrical power source fails.
FIRST DRAFT AGENDA | August 2022
Public comment on the First Draft of the 2025 Edition will be received until May 31, 2023.
We have advocated in this standard since 1996 and still use the original University of Michigan Workspace; though those workspaces must be upgraded to the new Google Sites during 2021. We provide a link to the Standards Michigan Workspace and invite you to join any of our electrical colloquia which are hosted jointly with the IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee four times per month in European and American time zones. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.
Issue: [96-04]
Category: Electrical, Risk
Contact: Mike Anthony, Robert Arno, Neal Dowling, Jim Harvey, Robert Schuerger, Mike Hiler
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ITM of Emergency Power Systems
Planning for Higher Education Journal: Revisiting the Campus Power Dilemma: A Case Study
Tom is a long-time colleague and friend so Mike happily posts his content:
Power Distribution Reliability Indices
Maysville Community and Technical College
The IEEE Education & Healthcare Facilities Committee (IEEE E&H) tracks campus power outages (as a research project) because many large research universities own and operate power generation and delivery enterprises that run upwards of 100 megawatts — i.e. at a scale that exceeds many municipal and cooperative electrical power utilities that are regulated by state utility commissions. It has been estimated that power outages on a large research university campus — some with a daily population of 10,000 to 100,000 students, faculty and staff — have an effective cost of $100,000 to $1,ooo,ooo per minute.
The IEEE E&H Committee uses IEEE 1366 Guide for Electrical Power Distribution Reliability Indices — as a template for exploring performance metrics of large customer-owned power systems. Respected voices in the IEEE disagree on many concepts that appear in it but, for the moment, it is the most authoritative consensus document produced by the IEEE Standards Association at the moment.
According to IEEE Standards Association due processes, a revision to the 2012 version is now at the start of its developmental trajectory:
IEEE P1366 PAR Revision Approval
We will depend upon the IEEE E&H Committee to keep us informed about issues that will affect campus power purchasing contracts. (There is a fair amount of runway ahead of us.) Conversely, no IEEE technical committee ignores “war stories” and solid reliability performance data. We dedicate one hour every month to electrical power standards. See our CALENDAR for the next online meeting; open to everyone.
Issue: [11-54]
Category: Electrical, Energy
Colleagues: Mike Anthony, Robert G. Arno, Neal Dowling, Jim Harvey, Kane Howard, Robert S. Schuerger
New update alert! The 2022 update to the Trademark Assignment Dataset is now available online. Find 1.29 million trademark assignments, involving 2.28 million unique trademark properties issued by the USPTO between March 1952 and January 2023: https://t.co/njrDAbSpwB pic.twitter.com/GkAXrHoQ9T
— USPTO (@uspto) July 13, 2023
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