Feature Article:

Changes in National Electric Code
Regarding Abandoned Cabling
by Gerard L. Lederer, Esq., Miller & Van Eaton
 

The wires that tenants have left behind in your raised floors, walls and ceilings, as well as the cables abandoned in your risers by carriers, have always been a nuisance.  Due to changes in the 2002 edition of the National Electric Code (“NEC”), those same wires may now render your property out of code and jeopardize your property’s fire insurance. This article examines the new rules that make it a violation to have abandoned wires in your building’s risers or plenums and mandate the use of specific wiring that meets certain flame-retardant standards.  It will also offer suggestions on a step-by-step process to ensure that your office building, MDU, school, hospital or other facility meets code, and that the financial impact of such actions are borne by the appropriate party.

 While the rules mandating the use of specific fire-safe cable types and banning abandoned wires in risers and plenums were adopted in late 2002, the debate has been on going for years. The new rules in a great many ways are a compromise between those who wanted to ban any wires not in metal raceways (for fear that such wires promote the spread of fires), and those that felt such deployments were perfectly safe.

The 2002 edition of the NEC is amended in at least nine locations to explicitly permit the deployment of specific types of wires (telephone, fiber, cable, fire alarm, power) in risers and plenums without the requirement of a metal raceway or conduit.  Each section also includes the requirement that “Abandoned cables shall not be permitted to remain unless contained in metal raceways.”  Abandoned wires are defined almost uniformly as “Installed communications cable that is not terminated at both ends at a connector or other equipment and not identified for future use with a tag.”    (Link to FULL ARTICLE)

Part 2 -- "The Owner's Response"   
 

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