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NORTH DAKOTA ADMINISTRATIVE CODE
TITLE 24. ELECTRICAL BOARD
ARTICLE 2. ELECTRICAL WIRING STANDARDS
CHAPTER 1. GENERAL CONDITIONS AND ELECTRICAL WIRING STANDARDS
Date:
08/31/2009
Document:
24-02-01-16. Marking of means of egress, illumination of means of egress, and emergency lighting.
The purpose of this section is to provide exit and emergency lighting requirements in accordance with Life Safety Code, NFPA 101, 2009 edition, in simple and condensed form. For occupancies or items not covered in this condensed version, refer to NFPA 101, 2009 edition, for complete details. In the wiring of institutional occupancies, governmental agencies may use other codes, which may be more stringent, especially when federal funds are involved.
1. Marking of means of egress. All required exits and access to exits shall be marked by readily visible signs. For externally illuminated signs, letters shall be not less than six inches 150 millimeters high. Internally illuminated signs shall be listed per ANSI/UL 924 which assures proper letter size. Chevron-shaped arrows are required to indicate direction to exits. Every sign shall be suitably illuminated. For externally illuminated signs see subsection 7.10.6, Life Safety Code, NFPA 101, 2009 edition and for internally illuminated signs see subsection 7.10.7.
2. Illumination of means of egress. Illumination of means of egress shall provide continuous, dependable, illumination of not less than one foot-candle at floor level for all areas such as corridors, stairways, and exit doorway, providing a lighted path of travel to the outside of the building and public way during all times that the means of egress is available for use. For new stairs, the required minimum illumination level is ten foot-candle during conditions of stair use. Illumination shall be from a source of reasonable assured reliability and may be supplied from normal lighting circuits or special circuits with switching controlled by authorized personnel. Illumination required for exit marking shall also serve for illumination of means of egress and shall be so arranged that failure of a single unit such as burning out of a single bulb will not leave any area in darkness.
3. Emergency lighting. Emergency lighting systems shall be so arranged to provide the required illumination automatically in event of any interruption or failure of the normal power supply. An acceptable alternate source of power may be an electric generator or approved battery. In occupancies where emergency lighting is required, the circuits supplying exit marking and illumination of means of egress shall be supplied by the emergency system. Other areas of the facilities only requiring exit marking and illumination of means of egress may be supplied by the normal source.
4. Classification of occupancy based on chapter 6, Life Safety Code, NFPA 101, 2009 edition.
Note: Check with local building official to determine occupancy and occupant load.
Assembly. Assembly occupancies include all buildings or portions of buildings used for gathering together fifty or more persons for such purposes as deliberation, worship, entertainment, eating, drinking, amusement, or awaiting transportation. Assembly occupancies also include special amusement buildings regardless of occupant load.
Assembly occupancies include the following:
Armories Libraries
Assembly halls Mortuary chapels
Auditoriums Motion picture theaters
Bowling lanes Museums
Clubrooms Passenger stations and terminals of air, surface, underground, and marine public transportation facilities
College and university classrooms, fifty persons and over Places of religious worship
Conference rooms Poolrooms
Courtrooms Recreation piers
Dancehalls Restaurants
Drinking establishments Skating rinks
Exhibition halls Theaters
Gymnasiums
Occupancy of any room or space for assembly purposes by fewer than fifty persons in a building or other occupancy and incidental to such other occupancy shall be classified as part of the other occupancy and shall be subject to the provisions applicable thereto.
Educational. Educational occupancies include all buildings or portions of buildings used for educational purposes through the twelfth grade by six or more persons for four or more hours per day or more than twelve hours per week.
Educational occupancies include the following:
Academies Nursery schools
Kindergartens Schools
Other occupancies associated with educational institutions shall be in accordance with the appropriate part of Life Safety Code, NFPA 101, 2009 edition.
In cases when instruction is incidental to some other occupancy, the section of Life Safety Code, NFPA 101, 2009 edition, governing such other occupancy applies. For example:
Classrooms under fifty persons - business occupancy
Classrooms fifty persons and over - assembly
Instructional building - business occupancy
Laboratories, instructional - business occupancy
Laboratories, noninstructional - industrial
Day care. Day care occupancies include all buildings or portions of buildings in which four or more clients receive care, maintenance, and supervision, by other than their relatives or legal guardians, for less than twenty-four hours per day.
Day care occupancies include the following:
Child day care occupancies
Adult day care occupancies, except where part of a health care occupancy
Nursery schools
Day care homes
Kindergarten classes that are incidental to a child day care occupancy
In cases when public schools offer only half-day kindergarten programs, many child day care occupancies offer state-approved kindergarten classes for children who require full day care. As these classes are normally incidental to the day care occupancy, the requirements of the day care occupancy should be followed.
Health care. Health care occupancies are those used for purposes such as medical or other treatment or care of persons suffering from physical or mental illness, disease, or infirmity and for the care of infants, convalescents, or infirm aged persons. Health care occupancies provide sleeping facilities for four or more occupants and are occupied by persons who are mostly incapable of self-preservation because of age, physical or mental disability, or because of security measures not under the occupants' control.
Health care occupancies include the following:
Hospitals Nursing homes
Limited care facilities
Ambulatory health care. Ambulatory health care occupancies are those used to provide services or treatment simultaneously to four or more patients on an outpatient basis. The patients are considered incapable of self-preservation due to the treatment rendered, the use of anesthesia, or the injury for which they are receiving emergency or urgent care.
Detention and correctional. Detention and correctional occupancies are used to house individuals under varied degrees of restraint or security and are occupied by persons who are mostly incapable of self-preservation because of security measures not under the occupants' control.
Detention and correctional occupancies include the following:
Adult and juvenile substance abuse centers
Adult and juvenile work camps
Adult community residential centers
Adult correctional institutions
Adult local detention facilities
Juvenile community residential centers
Juvenile detention facilities
Juvenile training schools
Residential. Residential occupancies are those occupancies in which sleeping accommodations are provided for normal residential purposes and include all buildings designed to provide sleeping accommodations.
Exception. Those classified under health care or detention and correctional occupancies.
Residential occupancies are treated separately in Life Safety Code, NFPA 101, 2009 edition, in the following groups:
One-family and two-family dwellings
Lodging or rooming houses
Hotels, motels, and dormitories
Apartment buildings
Residential board and care facilities
Mercantile. Mercantile occupancies include stores, markets, and other rooms, buildings, or structures for the display and sale of merchandise.
Mercantile occupancies include the following:
Auction rooms Shopping centers
Department stores Supermarkets
Drugstores
Office, storage, and service facilities incidental to the sale of merchandise and located in the same building are included with mercantile occupancy.
Business. Business occupancies are those used for the transaction of business other than those covered under mercantile, for the keeping of accounts and records, and for similar purposes.
Business occupancies include the following:
Air traffic control towers (ATCTs) Doctors' offices
City halls General offices
College and university instructional buildings, classrooms under fifty persons, and instructional laboratories Outpatient clinics, ambulatory
Courthouses Townhalls
Dentists' offices
Doctors' and dentists' offices are included unless of such character as to be classified as ambulatory health care occupancies.
Industrial. Industrial occupancies include factories making products of all kinds and properties devoted to operations such as processing, assembling, mixing, packaging, finishing or decorating, and repairing.
Industrial occupancies include the following:
Drycleaning plants Power plants
Factories of all kinds Pumping stations
Food processing plants Refineries
Gas plants Sawmills
Hangars (for servicing or maintenance) Telephone exchanges
Laundries
In evaluating the appropriate classification of laboratories, the authority having jurisdiction should determine each case individually based on the extent and nature of the associated hazards. Some laboratories may be classified as occupancies other than industrial, for example, a physical therapy laboratory or a computer laboratory.
Storage. Storage occupancies include all buildings or structures utilized primarily for the storage or sheltering of goods, merchandise, products, vehicles, or animals.
Storage occupancies include the following:
Barns Hangars (for storage only)
Bulk oil storage Parking structures
Cold storage Truck and marine terminals
Freight terminals Warehouses
Grain elevators
Storage occupancies are characterized by the presence of relatively small numbers of persons in proportion to the area. Any new use that increases the number of occupants to a figure comparable with other classes of occupancy changes the classification of the building to that of the new use.
Mixed occupancies. Where two or more classes of occupancy occur in the same building or structure and are intermingled so that separate safeguards are impracticable, means of egress facilities, construction, protection, and other safeguards shall comply with the most restrictive life safety requirements of the occupancies involved.
5. Occupant load factor table.
Use Square Feet Per Person
Assembly use 15 net*
Areas of concentrated use without fixed seating 7 net*
Waiting space 3 net*
Bleachers, pews, and similar bench-type seating Note 1
Fixed seating Note 2
Kitchens 100 gross**
Libraries
In stack areas 100 gross**
In reading rooms 50 net*
Swimming pools
Water surface 50 gross**
Pool decks 30 gross**
Stages 15 net*
Educational use
Classroom area 20 net*
Shops, laboratories, and similar vocational areas 50 net*
Day care use
Maximum number of persons intended to occupy that floor, but not less than 35 net*
Health care use
Sleeping departments 120 gross**
Inpatient departments 240 gross**
Ambulatory health care 100 gross**
Detention and correctional use
Maximum number of persons intended to occupy that floor, but not less than 120 gross**
Residential use
Hotels, motels, dormitories, apartment buildings:
Maximum probable population, but not less than 200 gross**
Lodging or roominghouses:
Sleeping accommodations for a total of sixteen or fewer persons on either a transient or permanent basis, with or without meals, but without separate cooking facilities or individual occupants No requirements
One-family and two-family dwellings No requirements
Residential board and care use Note 3
Mercantile use (including malls)
Street level and below (sales) 30 gross**
Upper floor (sales) 60 gross**
Office areas 100 gross**
Storage, receiving, or shipping (not open to the general public) 300 gross**
Assembly areas See "Assembly"
Business use
Business purposes 100 gross**
Air traffic control tower observation levels 40 gross**
Other purposes Note 4
Industrial use
Maximum number of persons intended to occupy that floor but not less than 100 gross**
Storage use
In storage occupancies N/A
In mercantile occupancies 300 gross**
In other than storage and mercantile occupancies 500 gross**
* Net floor area is the actual occupied area, not including accessory unoccupied areas or thickness of walls.
** Gross floor area is the floor area within the inside perimeter of the outside walls of the building under consideration with no deduction for hallways, stairs, closets, thickness of interior walls, columns, or other features.
Notes to occupant load table.
Note 1. Bleachers, pews, and similar bench-type seating: one person per eighteen linear inches 457.2 millimeters .
Note 2. Fixed seating. The occupant load of an area having fixed seats shall be determined by the number of fixed seats installed. Required aisle space serving the fixed seats shall not be used to increase the occupant load.
Note 3. Refer to chapters 32 and 33 of Life Safety Code, NFPA 101, 2009 edition.
Note 4. Occupant load factors associated with the use.
6. Building classification table.
x - indicates required
o - indicates not required
Occupancy Marking of Means Egress Illumination of Means Egress Emergency Lighting
Assembly x x x
Educational x x x
Day care x x x
Interior stairs and corridors x x x
Assembly use spaces x x x
Flexible and open plan buildings x x x
Interior or limited access portions of buildings x x x
Shops and laboratories x x x
Family day care homes (more than three but fewer than seven persons) o x o
Group day care homes (seven to twelve persons) o x o
Health care occupancies (Note 1) (for complete details see Article 517 of NEC and NFPA Standard 99) x x x
Detention and correctional x x x
Residential
Hotels and dormitories x x x Note 2
Apartment buildings
Twelve or less apartments x x o Note 3
More than twelve apartments or greater than three stories in height x x x Note 3
Residential board and care
More than sixteen residents x x x Note 2
Mercantile
Class A - over thirty thousand square feet 2787.09 square meters or greater than three stories x x x
Class B - three thousand square feet to thirty thousand square feet 278.71 square meters to 2787.09 square meters or three thousand square feet 278.71 square meters or less and two or three stories x x x
Class C - under three thousand square feet 278.71 square meters and one story x Note 6 x o
Malls x x x
Business x x o
Three or more stories in height x x x
Fifty or more persons above or below level of exit discharge x x x
Three hundred or more persons x x x
All limited access and underground x x x
Industrial x x Note 7 x Notes 7 & 8
Storage x x Note 9 x Notes 9 & 10
Special structures (refer to chapter 11, Life Safety Code, NFPA 101, 2009 edition).
Mixed occupancies (Note 5).
NOTES:
Note 1. Exception: Power supply for exit and emergency lighting shall conform to NFPA 110.
Note 2. Exception: Where each guest room, guest suite, or resident sleeping room has an exit direct to the outside of the building at street or ground level emergency lighting is not required.
Note 3. Exception: Buildings with only one exit need not be provided with exit signs.
Note 5. Exception: Where the same means of egress serve multiple-use or combined occupancies, exit lighting, exit signs, and emergency lighting shall be provided for the occupancy with the most stringent lighting requirements. The occupant load of each type of occupancy shall be added to arrive at the total occupant load.
Note 6. Exception: Where an exit is immediately apparent from all portions of the sales area, the exit marking is not required.
Note 7. Exception: Special purpose industrial occupancies without routine human habitation.
Note 8. Exception: Structures occupied only during daylight hours, with skylights or windows arranged to provide the required level of illumination on all portions of the means of egress during these hours.
Note 9. Exception: Storage occupancies do not require emergency lighting when not normally occupied.
Note 10. Exception: In structures occupied only during daylight hours, with skylights or windows arranged to provide the required level of illumination of all portions of the means of egress during these hours, emergency lighting is not required.
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