Paragon

That sentence isn't in the '99 NEC. When did Florida adopt the '02 edition? As a commercial building, the permit may have been pulled quite some time before the mall was built. - Jim Katen, Oregon That may be the answer. I am not sure how long this little mall has been in the offing, but I do know that Publix, the supermarket, (the anchor of the mall) was unhappy in its old location down the street for quite awhile.

I can only agree that the AHJ is allowing this situation for some reason. As to the section quoted: the next sentence states "the disconnecting means shall not be located on panels that are designed to allow access to the air-conditioning or refrgeration equipment." Maybe the city inspectors interpret that differently or maybe the equipment falls under the exception somehow. I'd love to see this set up for myself, but it's not gonna happen, I know. Thanks for your replies, folks...

[:-dunce] I was talking to a store owner in a new (as of last year) strip mall here in Central Florida, and he mentioned that their a/c units (rooftop, of course) all had their emergency disconnects mounted to the panel that is used to access the equipment. I understood him to mean a removable panel to access the unit for servicing. As I read the 2002 NEC section 440.14, it seems to clearly prohibit this. I am not very familar with commercial structures, so I wonder if this is common in a commercial HVAC system. Presumably, it was passed by the city of Winter Garden inspector. The owner also told me that his neighbor's unit had shut down and it was discovered then that no filter was in place. In fact, none of the units had filters. The mall owner accused that store owner of having removed it (yes, so many store owners go up on the roof to play with equipment!). Am I interpreting the NEC correctly on this point, or is there an exception or HVAC industry standard I am unaware of? Wish I had a photo or better understanding of the situation, but it was a casual conversation that piqued my curiosity....

According to the website, PP is rated for 50 to 203 degrees F. I saw mention of 150 PSI. I believe it would depend on exactly which tubing a person used, but the system I saw was obviously functioning after 5 years. I saw no signs of leakage (at the time of inspection, of course).

Thanks Chris! I read through the material on the site over my coffee this morning. One of them could very well be the tubing I saw, even though it was painted. When I touched it, it gave like PEX, but it could have been a type of the PP. So what this guy did was install an industrial-strength plumbing system. I have posted a question to Asahi on a possible life expectancy of the system. I'm surprised the insurance agency hasn't called me yet on that, but maybe they are not concerned over a plastic (non-PB) system. At least now I have some info with which to educate my clients. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

Hello group--- I did a 4-point yesterday. The owner, who lives next door, came over with my client and basically gave me the tour of the home. This guy is a retired building inspector, also electrical inspector and every other damn thing. The house has been totally replumbed with polypropylene 5 years ago.. That is what he claims. It is on a slab, so all I could see was the stub outs--they were certainly plastic, but had been painted. He said that they had all the proper clamps on them and all. He went on to say that he spent extra money to do it, that PB was cheaper, but he didn't want PB. So he is not confusing his plastics. I have never heard of this as a supply pipe, and when I search the web for info (and life expectancy), I find one web site that claims this type of pipe has a 10-15 year life. !! If that is true, why would anyone plumb with it? Could he have meant PEX? I touched one stub out and it was soft enough to have been PEX.