installing new UPS for my office and needs electrical work...

[hecktic]

Well as far as the building grounding is concerned, all I know is another office suite adjacent to mine is used by a radiologist and he has some intense multi-million dollar x-ray type machines with some special box outside near our parking lot to provide proper electric feeds into his suites.

SO... the building I think MUST have some higher than average grade earthing protection for the building itself.... at least I would believe so.

The building also has its own CCTV system with multiple commercial grade cameras in and outside of the building and throughout the parking lot..... not to mention our building is just blocks away from the local hospital which I am sure has invested heavily into advanced electrical work underground which our building probably I would guess piggy-backs off of..... or in other words what I am saying is that our building should have proper earthing protection.... the question is whether or not my specific suite is making use of this... that I do not know.

Is there any way for the electrician to find out the quality of the current earthing protection just by looking at the current breaker box?

What I can tell you right now is that my office suite has 3 commercial grade Copy/Fax machines, 4 workstation PCs, some cisco networking equipment including an aDSL modem, and one printer, and also an old alarm system from maybe 10yrs ago that is NOT digital based.

What we plan to add now is a payroll server (including integrated digital employee time clock system), PoE (Power over Ethernet) networking equipment with power supply (commercial grade HP brand "ProCurve" model), PoE Cameras, and a couple commercial grade scanners for use with EMR (Electronic-Medical Record) systems.

The server room housing the UPS/battery backup will be installed inside a rack-mount cage and should have equipment connected directly to it no less than maybe 6 feet (probably 4 feet though)... like your standard Power cord for a server and then a power adapter for the employee time clock and also if its feasible we will plug the PoE switch into the UPS directly for power to be then supplied to the PoE switch power supply which will then supply power to the half dozen or so cameras throughout the office via PoE delivery method. I have to check with the camera specs and with the electrician to see if this will work or not... I think 27000watts should be plenty for all of the things I mentioned but I will ask him just to be sure.

But we might use a different room than we anticipated due to possible ventilation issues with the current room housing the current breaker box.... so this is why the electrician told me that installing a whole new breaker in the other room that has proper ventilation might be a better option.

IF we decide to go that route and install a brand new breaker (I know its expensive but..), then what do I need to know before I accept this option. Do I need to be aware of anything that the electrician might try and oversell me or undersell me in terms of the quality of the breaker box he proposes to install? Do I need to meet any kind of requirements for the new room or prep the room for the new breaker box? (one of the electricians I spoke to said it was as simple as just taking the electrical feed out of the wall in the new room and just attaching the breaker box to it... is that true? is it a simple process like that?)

Anyways let me know... I appreciate the help very much.

Feel free to post something Rogard... I also as always appreciate your help.

[westom]

SO... the building I think MUST have some higher than average grade earthing protection for the building itself.... at least I would believe so.

Not relevant. Your earth ground must be within feet of the breaker box. And is visually inspected. Every main breaker box (the one adjacent to utility power meters) must have its own earth ground. You have one. Other buildings have their own.

Ground first meets code - only for human safety. And then upgraded for surge protection (that many electricians do not understand). For example, must also be shorter (ie 'less than 10 feet'), routed without sharp wire bends, separate from other non-ground wires, not inside metallic conduit, and all grounds (ie one from the telco installed 'whole house' protector) meet at the same earthing electrode. If not grasping this, then print it and recite it to him word for word.

All homeowners should have something equivalent if transistors are in the building.

Any building can have no earth ground and all electrical devices will work normally. This is actually a problem in older buildings where homeowners do not appreciate why that ground wire was important. Earthing has one purpose in the code: human safety. And other functions not defined by code such as to make a 'whole house' protector effective: transistor safety. Latter is protection from events that occur maybe once every seven years.

How much power does your UPS need? Every human who plugs appliances into a wall should know how to do this. Read a label where its power cord attaches to the box. Watts are listed. Sum up all the watts. That number should be same or less than the watts listed for the UPS. Simple arithmetic.

Then if a human makes a mistake, an emergency backup protection system (a circuit breaker) trips.

You did not mention 'server room' previously. You know how many watts are consumed. That defines the ventilation / air conditioning also required for that room. Numbers that the HVAC guy can quickly calculate once you know total wattage.

2700 watts? Not 27,000 watts.

How serious to be significantly changes these answers. For example, more reliable systems mean a raised computer floor, grounded (bonded) to the only box that provides all power in the room. That in turn connects to the main power box that is earthed and that contains a 'whole house' protector. Cooling blows under the floor to flow up through the racks. In one room that did this, the copy machine was working happy even after 1 million copies.

Everything in the room is powered and safety grounded only to that room's new box. And all wires into the room enter at one location. All wires between boxes route as a group. This is discussed in the second half of an IEEE paper from Montandon and Rubinstein in Nov 1998 entitled "Some Observations on the Protection of Buildings against the Induced Effects of Lightning.

Probably better to do these additional things if convenient.

Important is total wattages for both sufficient electric power and for sufficient ventilation (including overhead lights if relevant). For current demands and for estimated future needs. For example, if installing a distribution box in a dedicated room, some vacant slots should exist for future circuits.

All depends on how much you want to do / want to spend. And (of course) what the electrician and HVAC guy might recommend.

There is a purpose to having equipment that must be secure to be in a secure room, with sufficient ventilation, and a reliable power circuit.

Also many power hungry devices (ie printer) need not be on battery backup circuits. But data storage (and maybe data access - ie Cisco routers) and critical communication equipment (ie alarm systems) should have battery backup.

All depends on how much you need. What your security and access requirements are.

[hecktic]

Not relevant. Your earth ground must be within feet of the breaker box. And is visually inspected. Every main breaker box (the one adjacent to utility power meters) must have its own earth ground. You have one. Other buildings have their own.

Got it. Now exactly how many feet because I have this option as I discussed this with the electrician today.

We actually talked about it after I mentioned the 12 Wire thing from earlier in this thread and the electrician said he would probably use a Wire 8 if the current breaker was just to get an upgrade to accommodate the new dedicated 30amp line for the UPS. BUT... when I mentioned the new physical room across from the one that currently houses the current breaker box then he said he might use a Wire 10 and then after inspecting the ceiling accessibility options he said it might just be better to install a new breaker box or 2nd breaker box in the new room that has the existing ventilation system. Im going to take some pictures of all this and post it soon.

Ground first meets code - only for human safety. And then upgraded for surge protection (that many electricians do not understand). For example, must also be shorter (ie 'less than 10 feet'), routed without sharp wire bends, separate from other non-ground wires, not inside metallic conduit, and all grounds (ie one from the telco installed 'whole house' protector) meet at the same earthing electrode. If not grasping this, then print it and recite it to him word for word.

Yeah I think I get the concept here, its just hard to explain it to the electrician as I tried to do so today. And your talking about the wire for both grounding and surge protection within the breaker box right?

He mentioned Cutler but I dont think it was the same thing you were talking about...

So shorter distance from breaker box to the 30amp outlet, I take is the best way to ensure optimal grounding aside from what you already mentioned about no sharp wire bends and separating the ground from the rest and NOT using metallic conduit..... this is something the electrician I believe missed today when he told me about the idea of running the 30amp outlet in the new room to the current breaker box room thus using the ceiling and the metallic conduit with bends etc.

So aside from just reading that part word for word to him, how else can I convince or make him understand why this is important?

Also the idea earlier you mentioned:

The other alternative is a superior UPS located at the breaker box to power a dedicated circuit. Wall receptacles on that one circuit are powered through a service entrance UPS. Done this way when various equipment is widely separated throughout the building. This UPS typically cost more since even battery life expectancy is significantly longer - more than 3 years.

I was thinking about relocating all of our workstation towers into the server room and running maybe a 'KVM' switch or even separate lines for keyboard, mouse, and video out of the server room into area where the workstations are at now. The reason for this is because each workstation at the moment is connected to its own battery backup/mini-UPS and the maintenance of these units is annoying and gets expensive over time.

IF the server room gets a new breaker with 8 to 12 outlets as I was told today then I am going to do this but if the server room just gets the 30amp outlet and no breaker then I will just move the workstation towers into the server room and plug them into the UPS directly instead of the wall outlets because I don't think our usage in terms of Watts will ever come close to 2,700 watts (and I am in the process of measuring usage of all our equipment with a P4400 KILL A WATT by P3 - http://www.p3international.com/produ.../P4400-CE.html )

All homeowners should have something equivalent if transistors are in the building.

Any building can have no earth ground and all electrical devices will work normally. This is actually a problem in older buildings where homeowners do not appreciate why that ground wire was important. Earthing has one purpose in the code: human safety. And other functions not defined by code such as to make a 'whole house' protector effective: transistor safety. Latter is protection from events that occur maybe once every seven years.

No I agree... in fact the electrician talked about even installing "grounding rods" that physically are drilled into the ground and provide an additional grounding protection... it sounds good in theory but does this or is this usually something used today or is this something old school from many years ago???

The electrician said he installed these in a box mode around large generators many years ago.

He said we could add these also into the server room to provide added protection to deter any surge spikes that pass through a surge protector..... what do you think?

How much power does your UPS need? Every human who plugs appliances into a wall should know how to do this. Read a label where its power cord attaches to the box. Watts are listed. Sum up all the watts. That number should be same or less than the watts listed for the UPS. Simple arithmetic.

Yes Im in the process of doing this using my Kill-a-watt and will have precise numbers for you soon. The electrician also wanted this information today ha.

Then if a human makes a mistake, an emergency backup protection system (a circuit breaker) trips.

You did not mention 'server room' previously. You know how many watts are consumed. That defines the ventilation / air conditioning also required for that room. Numbers that the HVAC guy can quickly calculate once you know total wattage.

2700 watts? Not 27,000 watts.

I don't anticipate to go over 2,700 watts but I will get the exact numbers and tell you soon. The server room we have at the moment that is in plans to be used for this purpose is not too cold but just enough I think... but I will run the numbers and post it here soon.

But regardless of the numbers, so I need to call an HVAC specialist or can I just play with the digital thermostat and just leave the server room extra cool when I close the office (which is usually after 5/6ish pm... opens in morning around 8/9am)

Yeah sorry I didnt mention server room before, but think of it more like a data closet just with a enough physical space to act like a server room.... and really our actual server which will be in this room is probably going to be a tower and not a blade server but if the existing cooling can handle the heat then we may choose a blade server but I doubt it.... we already have a payroll servers equipment and its all setup for a tower server. We will have a rack mount cage but it will be just enough in size to accommodate the 3U APC UPS I posted earlier.

If its cost effective (and it may very well be) then we will install a full blown rack mount cage that you would see a hospital data room that includes a blower fan or something of that magnitude on the top or bottom or even sides of the rack mount cage..... the server will be locked at all times and only I and the physician in charge of the office will have access to this room via biometric lock and maybe also a traditional key locking door knob.

Ever since the EMR systems (Electronic-Medical Records System) revolution began our need for a data room/server room has been growing so maybe its a good idea to plan ahead now for the future especially since there are literally thousands of records that will be fed into our new EMR system soon. (Our conversion started just over a year ago but the demand and growth rate is so much that we need more efficient methods from all angles including billing and not just the record-keeping side.

How serious to be significantly changes these answers. For example, more reliable systems mean a raised computer floor, grounded (bonded) to the only box that provides all power in the room. That in turn connects to the main power box that is earthed and that contains a 'whole house' protector. Cooling blows under the floor to flow up through the racks. In one room that did this, the copy machine was working happy even after 1 million copies.

Everything in the room is powered and safety grounded only to that room's new box. And all wires into the room enter at one location. All wires between boxes route as a group. This is discussed in the second half of an IEEE paper from Montandon and Rubinstein in Nov 1998 entitled "Some Observations on the Protection of Buildings against the Induced Effects of Lightning.

Probably better to do these additional things if convenient.

Well we aren't running a data center by any means although you could say it is a mini-me version of one... and I don't consider a server closet/data room a real data center but anything that wont tear open the floor that will add reliability and performance, then sure why not.

I wonder if I should show the electrician a copy of that IEEE paper...

The electrician did ask to see the meter for the building since we didn't have a meter for our individual office suite and I could not find it anywhere outside of the building so he said it might be in a closet room inside the building that will surely have a key entry access to it... ...but I told him our rent for the office space includes electricity and he said then maybe the whole building utilizes one meter instead of multiple meters for each office....my question to you is, what will seeing the meter do if anything? provide useful information to the electrician?

I showed him a special transformer outside used by our neighbors in the other office suite I mentioned to you earlier -the radiologist who has the special imagery x-ray machines that are worth multi-million dollars and the reaction to this the electrician said "there has to be hundreds of thousands of volts coming into the entire building possibly throwing small surges into your office suite since its next to the one with all that x-ray machine equipment"

So we went on to discuss surge protection and grounding methods and I asked him if we just moved our office to a farther one away from this radiologist with this huge transformer outside of the building (since it sits right outside of our office suite...literally right next to the wall outside of our office suite) and he said it wouldn't matter because its probably effecting all the offices in the building. Ill take some pictures of this transformer and Ill post them but what do you make of this?

Important is total wattages for both sufficient electric power and for sufficient ventilation (including overhead lights if relevant). For current demands and for estimated future needs. For example, if installing a distribution box in a dedicated room, some vacant slots should exist for future circuits.

Yes the electrician said if we decided to go with a brand new breaker for the server room and NOT run just a 30amp line into the room that he would install a 60amp capable breaker with multiple outlets in the room... at first I thought that was a crazy idea since we don't need that much power but then I realized he was talking about for future needs and he did mention future needs but I wasn't really following him at the time he was talking about this....

So my question is, is too much power dangerous for a room that will be locked up most of the day with no one to check up on it physically? I say physically because I will not personally be there to check up on it daily however I plan to install a PoE Surveillance Camera inside the server room with camera control functions to view the entire room OR multiple cameras at different angles. Will this be enough or will we need like an on-call emergency contact to service something in the event of malfunction or possible failure? I mean I know the electrician company claims 24-hour on-call service for emergency but still what can we do to lessen the need to utilize that 24-hour on call service provided by the electrician company.

All depends on how much you want to do / want to spend. And (of course) what the electrician and HVAC guy might recommend.

There is a purpose to having equipment that must be secure to be in a secure room, with sufficient ventilation, and a reliable power circuit.

Also many power hungry devices (ie printer) need not be on battery backup circuits. But data storage (and maybe data access - ie Cisco routers) and critical communication equipment (ie alarm systems) should have battery backup.

All depends on how much you need. What your security and access requirements are.

Yeah I actually realized this today that only data and equipment used to access vital data needs Battery Backup.... but you know the UPS we have I believe actually has non-battery backup enabled output or outlet connections in addition to those for battery backup AND UPS....
in other words we can use some of the outlets on the battery backup for standard needs and then the others for battery backup purposes.... I have to double check this but I think our APC UPS features these functions.

So if that is not the case, then yeah I will leave the printers out and just plug in the data and data communication equipment.

[westom]

Got it. Now exactly how many feet because I have this option as I discussed this with the electrician today.

We actually talked about it after I mentioned the 12 Wire thing from earlier in this thread and the electrician said he would probably use a Wire 8 if the current breaker was just to get an upgrade to accommodate the new dedicated 30amp line for the UPS. BUT... when I mentioned the new physical room across from the one that currently houses the current breaker box then he said he might use a Wire 10 and then after inspecting the ceiling accessibility options he said it might just be better to install a new breaker box or 2nd breaker box in the new room that has the existing ventilation system. Im going to take some pictures of all this and post it soon. ...

Earth ground electrode should connect short (ie 'less than 10 feet') to tha main breaker box. And that ground wire should not be in conduit. That ground wire has no relationship to the other wire that would go to the server room. If you choose to install everything in a server room, then it is easier to run one wire to a distribution box in that room. Then power various circuits from that distribution box.

10 AWG would be for a 30 amp circuit. 8 AWG is simply the next thicker wire - a better conductor. Plugs define how much current (amps) that wire must provide. Code then tells the electrician how thick that wire must be. You need not worry about wire thickness; only about how much current (power) is needed.

The wire from main breaker box to the room will probably be in conduit. Code defines that for safety reasons. That conduit not to be confused with an earth ground wire that will be a bare, quarter inch, copper wire and not in conduit. That ground wire only connects to the main breaker box that also has the protector. The 30 amp circuit is one cable (conduit) from main breaker box to server room. The earth ground wire is a different single and bare wire that goes from main breaker box to earth. This bare wire is the one that must be short, no sharp bends, etc to the earth ground rod(s).

'Whole house' protectors are made by many well respected companies such as Siemsn, Square D, Cutler-Hammer, Intermatic, Leviton, and General Electric. These companies also make most other parts found in or that connect to breaker boxes. For example, Cutler-Hammer (Eaton) also makes breaker boxes and circuit breakers. A 'whole house' protector is just another part made by all these companies. Most important number for a 'whole house' protector is about 50,000 amps or higher. Most important number for the earth ground to that breaker box - connection to earth must be as short as 'practicable' (a word the code loves to use). And as you said, the protector is only in the mains breaker box so that surges can be connected as short as possible to earth.

And yes, more earth ground rods mean the 'whole house' protector is even better. Anything that makes the single point ground more conductive means the 'whole hosue' protector will divert even more surge energy harmless into earth. Faciltiies that require even more reliable protection literally surround the building with a buried bare copper wire. Even better protection - because protection is always about the quality of that earthing. New homes should have protection installed when the footing are poured - Ufer grounds. Mentioned for others who are following. But that solution is not relevant to your venue.

Meter defines where the main breaker box (different from distribution breaker boxes) and earth ground are located. For example, inspecting earth ground connections and installing ae surge protector requires access to that meter room. If you normally do not have access to that room, then another reason to have a server room distribution box so that breakers are quickly and easily accessed. You do not want communication equipment unpowered (breaker tripped) because someone cannot find a key to that meter room.

It sounds like he is talking about installing a better earth ground (more rods) closer to the main box. Better earthing means the 'whole house' protector works better. Every 'layer' of protection is defined by the only item required in every layer - the earth ground. So, your primary surge protection is installed by the utility at the pole (or in a ground level transformer box). Visual inspection of the primary protection layer is this picture:
http://www.tvtower.com/fpl.html
All utility wires (power, telephone, cable TV) should connect to this earth ground.

Secondary protection layer is defined by the earth ground at the main breaker box and meter. Every incoming wire in every cable connects to this earth ground either directly (cable TV) or via a protector (AC electric, telephone).

And then some facilities do a third layer. IOW the server room then has earthing in the floor. And all wires enter the room at the same side. All wires again connect to this earth ground directly or via a protector. That is why some facilities also use the raised computer floor. That grounded floor is part of the third protection layer separated from everything else in the building only earthed by the secondary protection layer. Sort of a building isolated and separatedly earthed inside a building.

If you implement a third protection layer, even phone wires must enter and be earthed (via a protector) just all other wires and ducts. All depends upon how 'hardened' you want to make your facility. But then facilities that are that extensive also have electric generators for backup power.

Implementing the third protection layer with a sever room earth ground and without doing it religiously is a good idea - because it is additional protection done on the cheap.

So, let's assume KVM. If outside the room, then CRT, mouse, and keyboard cables would have to connect to that single point ground where wires leave the room. Or the KVM area must be integrated as part of the server room's "third protection layer". IOW the KVM might be done with some converter so that mouse, keyboard, and CRT wires interconnect via some other hardware standard that is 'easy to implement' protection / earthing. And since mouse, keyboard, etc cables have distance restrictions, that converter would also be necessary to connect KVM outside the server room. (Black Box is one company that provides unique and strange solutions for such distant KVM implementations.)

Radiologists transformer would not cause problems. In fact, many commericial 'buildings have transformers inside the building - not on the utility pole, etc. These will convert 4,000 or 33,000 volts (wires that enter the building at voltages that high) to 120/240 volts. (Which is why some meter rooms are restricted access.) Being nearby or inside the buiding does not cause any additional problems. Your air conditioner is more likely to cause 'surges'.

Further confirm that 'no problem'. Operate an old style CRT monitor adjacent to that wall closest to the radiologist's transformer. If his transfomer is generating 'fields', that CRT picture will be distorted by those fields. And those fields still will (should) not be destructive to other equipment.

That CRT test may even discover high current, low voltage (120/240v) wires inside the walls. Sometimes wires to a stove under the floor can distort a CRT when the stove operates. Many worry about high voltages when electromagnetic field interference is more often due to lower voltage, high current wires.

Only problem created by the radiologist's transformer might be minor voltage variations - also called noise - that should be made irrelevant by power supplies inside all electronics. When the X-ray machine runs, you might hear that noise on an AM radio as it power cycles. And then you might learn how many other devices create far more electrical noise. (Tuning an AM radio to distant stations makes it a better 'noise' detector.)

The Kil-a-Watt is another good tool. Notice that V-A number will be different from watts. Watts is power used by equipment. V-A is the actual power consumed. V-A will be same for an incandescant bulb and will be higher for electronics. Bulb has a power factor of 1. Electronics create a power factor problem. Electronics might have a power factor of 0.7. In simple terms, electronics only use .7 amps productively for every one amp consumed. Some larger facilties install power factor correction so that more energy they pay for gets used productively.

Power cosumed by appliances (per Kil-A-Wat) will be less than the number on its power label. What appliances consume typically averages less than the maximum number on that label. A UPS is sized for the maximum number. UPS must be able to provide those peak demands.

30 amps is significant power. Rare is a server closet consuming that much power (something less than 3600 watts). I doubt your equipment will consume that much power - generate that much heat.

Running a 60 amp wire (ie same wire to a buiding wide air conditioner) means even less voltage variation in the room as the load changes. Costs very little more. Makes any future upgrades simple (Just like homes upgraded from 60 amp service to 200 amp service - cheaper was to do it right the first time).

One mistake made by those who have a server 'closet' is that the amount of air moved through that closet is defined by wattage (power dissipated). Just having ventilation is not sufficient. How many CFMs (cubic feet per minute) defines whether the room has sufficient air flow to remove the heat. Small rooms (closets) often do not have sufficient air flow. In simple terms, air flow is defined by the vent duct 'cross sectonal' area. More square inches means more air moved.

Camera typically is not be useful for hardware security. Hardware failures rarely have any visual indication. Sensitive smoke detector (fire alarm) in that room should be more than sufficient for anything that the camera might see - except humans. Camera is important for human security. If really into security, so that someone unconcious in the computer room does not lay there undiscovered over the weekend. Or so that theives can be identified.

BTW, you did not discuss secure data lines - so that vandals do not break communication or implement data theft devices. Netscape had a interesting security device for their data cables. Those cables were in a cast iron pipe often found in older homes for bathroom and kitchen sewage. To compromise the data cables, one had to crack that cast iron. Compromised data easily discovered since the pipe was easily observed by anyone.

Smoke sensitive detectors would do most to protect that hardware room. Of course, no smoking permitted. If the room is properly wired and ventilated, then the amount of power in that room is irrelevant.

KVM and other such solutions are interesting. Humans working in a room more condusive to productive work. More important than cameras is software that can monitor the health of all computer equipment and sound an alarm. So that the KVM remote station can 'see' the failure. Electric power is so reliable that an electrician on call is unnecessary. Far more likely are software failures or a failed server storage device or communication failure. Useful is a separte 'systems health monitor' work area implemented in a nearby quiet workspace.

Important point of that IEEE paper are pictures of how various equpment should be interconnected. In your case, that means extreme electromagnectic fields are less likely to cause data loss, slower data transfers, or interruption. Paper applies mostly to how data cabling is routed. The point is in something like four (somewhat cryptic) points made in the conclusions. An electrician typically would not understand any of that. Electricians spend significant time learning code - that is mostly about human safety and the avoidance of fire. Electricians typically would not understand the reasons in that paper - only understand what must be done. 'Second half' pictures demonstrate what to do.

If rewring a new room, then you might have high reliabiiity circuits - to servers and communcation equipment. And less reliable circuts - to printers. And maybe even switched circuits so that a wall switch powers off everything not required during unmanned operation. For example, if one server can supplement another, then having both servers on separate circuit breakes is a smarter option.

One operation has one power switch(es) adjacent to the door. This powers off all desks and associated electronics at the end of the day. Only machines left powered are the fax and other 24 hour equipment. An easy way to power off everything unnecessary and to reduce the risk of fire (ie somebody left on a small heater). Something to think about if doing that much rewiring. Areas that have much human interaction also have a higher fire risk due to something inadvertantly left powered on over the weekend.

I hope I have covered everything. So this was a simple question about a UPS.