Which would be a good point as to what you were looking at. Your mind would see a receptacle but in reality you are looking at the light fixture. The receptacle is being installed in place of the light fixture not as a receptacle therefore the receptacle is part of the light fixture and not part of the required receptacles.
This is the very reason the rule was added to 210.52 in the 2008 code stating that a switched receptacle would not count for the required receptacles outlined in 210.52
I guess you didn’t read the ROP. Nobody suggested this was anything but a CHANGE in the code and one guy said it wasn’t even necessary.
I agree a switched receptacle is used as an alternative way to meet 210.70(A)(1) but that does not make it a “luminare” unless it suddenly aquires the ability to become “A complete lighting unit consisting of a lamp or lamps together with the parts designed to distribute the light”
The point of all this for the NACHI folks is you will be very likely to see switched receptacles fulfilling the <6’ requirement and it was perfectly legal until the 2008 gets adopted or unless your local AHJ altered the rules
(either by addendum to the code or creative intrepretation)
Am I right to assume that this is a fully switched receptacle and not a 1/2 switched as required up here for many years.
Yes, unless a local AHJ has changed the code or simply twisted the language, a switched duplex could still be the required <6’ receptacle.
As I said at the top of the thread, this varies by AHJ. Also splitting the receptacle was done by responsible electricians as a design choice.
BTW I agree with the code change.
If it is a fully switched receptacle then it is no longer a receptacle but a light fixture as outlined in 210.70(A)(1) exception.
If it is a switched 1/2 receptacle then there is still one receptacle that will fulfill the spacing requirement.
This has been a code rule for longer than I have lived although seldom enforced.
It has been overlooked by both electricians and code officials simply becuse of their tunnel vision and all they see is a receptacle.
To simply take a moment and look at the installation it is simple to see that if the entire receptacle is switched then there is no receptacle for the spacing rule simply because the entire receptale is being used as the exception for a light.
Let me once again say that I don’t see this as a major safety violation but it is a violation none the less.
Not a major violation but if someone uses an extension cord to provide continous power in this area due to this fully switched receptacle, then it starts to raise my hackles. We shouldn’t be using exetnsion cords as permanent wiring and my belief is the code is designed to prevent this. And as I tell everyone I can…codes are just minimum standards, not the best we can do. So let’s at least get the minimum done well. One builder on Fine Homebuilding’s MB has a tag on all his posts:
Bad builders build to code; good builders go beyond.
Had a story recounted to me 1.5 years ago:
A client’s friend (single mother with 5-6 year old daughter) went to child’s room one evening to read her a story and put her to bed. The child had just fallen asleep early so the mother wasn’t going to go in to turn the light off for fear of waking the girl just into sleep. She hestitated but went in to find the smell of something overheating/burning. It was an extension cord serving the bedstand light. It was stretched and gotten under the opposite bed leg at the head. Mother’s intuition/luck…good thing!!