The International Standards of Practice for Inspecting Commercial Properties … Contact online >>
The International Standards of Practice for Inspecting Commercial Properties
Commercial and Home Inspector Safety: Carcinogens on the Job; Commercial
Inspectors must fully understand the International Standards of Practice for
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2.1 Core Definitions. 2.1.1 Commercial Property: A commercial property is
The Certified Commercial Property Inspector Association (CCPIA) promotes
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I will start off this post by saying that I am NOT an electrician & recommend consulting one for any electrical/ power requirement concerns your company has. However, a recent client request left me stumped & wanting to learn more.
Power generally only comes up in one of two contexts in my business:
But what constitutes an above normal power usage? To begin answering this question, it is important to understand a few definitions/ equations:
Below is the wattage of a few common household/office items:
Using the above chart, a 1,000 SF office might use 4,000 Watts or 4 kW on average not accounting for larger appliances such as HVAC usage or kitchen appliances.
But how much power is supplied to commercial buildings?
Above is a simplified visual representation of a generator creating 3 phase AC power (alternating current oscillates between -170 and 170 volts giving an effective voltage of 120 V).
Most residential machinery can handle these oscillations (and temporary instances of zero volts) but some industrial equipment/motors cannot. Thus the three offset phases allow for near constant voltage.
From the generator, this power goes to a transmission substation and is “stepped up,” to transmission voltages of 155,000 to 765,000 Volts. The range of this transmission is generally around 300 miles (If you look at distribution lines you will see 3 wires for the 3 phases of power + a ground line). The voltage is then “stepped down,” to distribution voltages of around 7,200 Volts to 13,000 Volts. A “Bus,” splits the power into multiple directions and transformer boxes complete the final step down to the voltage levels found in your building.
In residential & small commercial buildings this transformer box is owned by the utility companies and can be found on the street. In larger commercial buildings the transformers, switchgear, bus, etc will be owned by the building owner and contained within the building.
Common wiring methods can be found at the link below, but in general, residential buildings receive single phase power of 240 V (split into 2 legs of 120 V) and commercial buildings receive 3 phase power. The voltage can range but is typically between service voltages of 240 & 600 Volts (excluding large commercial buildings shown above which “step down” the voltage onsite).
Going back to our small 1,000 SF office example above:
If this were on a 15-20 Amp circuit, we would be in trouble and would need to rewire to allow for additional circuits within the space. If we were on a 50 Amp circuit, we should not have any issues. However if the company grew and doubled the density of their employees (along with monitors, computers, phones etc) we may also need to reexamine the circuit.
It is worth noting that in homes (and in commercial buildings, but this is more complicated due to the 3 phase aspect and multiple wiring arrangements) a load can be placed between the two single legs of 120 V to obtain 240 V. This is used to power larger equipment such as a water heater or HVAC equipment and cuts the current flow in half.
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