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Circuit Breaker Accessibility - Commercial Premises

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  • 02-09-2018 2:51pm
    #1
    kirving
    Registered Users Posts: 5,926 ✭✭✭


    Hi, just a quick question on the allowable location of a circuit breaker, in this case in a shop.

    Must a circuit breaker, switch, or plug, be readily accessible to staff? The closest I could find was the following, from the US.

    https://www.ecmag.com/section/codes-standards/readily-accessible

    TLDR:

    The backstory is that I was in a shop, and the software on a standalone ATM crashed, leaving my card visible, but locked in place.

    The most logical thing to do was restart the ATM and reboot the software. If it ate my card at that point, I would be in no worse of a situation. I could see the cable exiting the side and going behind it, but couldn't see or reach the plug as it was behind a large fridge.

    Asked the shop staff who didn't know what to do, and said only manager dealt with the ATM.

    I then called the bank, who said the ATM service dept. only work Mon-Fri, 9-5 (wtf?), but gave the go ahead to do a reboot of the ATM as one last option before canceling my card which is a major inconvenience.

    The shop staff however could not reach the switch, and had no access to the circuit breaker board which was locked in an office.

    If the ATM, (or any other equipment in the shop) was to go on fire, the staff couldn't turn it off from a central location. Surely this isn't allowed?


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    #2
    Sleeper12
    Registered Users Posts: 16,969 ✭✭✭✭Sleeper12


    I'm not an electrician but I would have thought that the fusebox would be located at the front door. This would enable the fire officer to kill the power to the building before turning on the water hose in the case of fire.

    I could see how the power isolation for an ATM could be locked away possibly for security reasons. This is a guess on my part


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