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New edition of IEC 60364-7-701 (Special locations containg a bath or shower)

-2400-
Just posting in case it is of interest...

IEC have recently published IEC 60364-7-701:2019. This is the standard that Section 701 of BS7671 is based on, so the changes might or might not roll through in a future update of '7671.

The Abstract is free to view (along with a longer preview) on the IEC website at https://webstore.iec.ch/publication/28906 and is pasted below:

Abstract



IEC 60364-7-701:2019 applies to electrical installations in indoor or outdoor locations where a bath tub and/or a shower is intended to be permanently placed in a specific location.
The extent of the location containing a bath tub and/or a shower is limited by:

– the lowest finished floor level;

– a horizontal plane 3 m above the lowest finished floor level;

– a vertical circumscribing virtual surface at a distance of 4 m from the fixed water outlet for the bath tub or shower; and

– the volume within the walls, floor and ceiling that border the location containing a bath or shower, measured to a depth of 6 cm.

The requirements of this document also apply to fixed electrical installations in mobile applications, for example caravans, mobile homes, shower containers. This document does not apply to emergency facilities, for example emergency showers used in industrial areas or laboratories.

This third edition cancels and replaces the second edition published in 2006. This edition constitutes a technical revision.

This edition includes the following significant technical changes with respect to the previous edition:

– the scope gives precisions relevant to the application of this document;

– the description of zones is improved;

– relevant terms are defined.


  • 0
    It looks rather as though the British disease of "gold plating" regulations is spreading throughout Europe. There appears to be no reason to including these inaccessible areas in walls floors and ceilings and most of the ideas seem to ignore the construction of real buidings. Next time I have a shower I must remember to take my drill in to add some itrems to the wall fixings.
  • 0

    Chris Pearson:

    "fixed water outlet" presumably means the water supply to the bath or shower, although in plain English, it suggests the plug hole where water is allowed out. ?




     

    It’s the plug hole as I know it.


    Which makes life interesting as shower trays have got bigger and thinner being “low profile” mine is 1700 x 800 but the waste outlet is central although usually the plug hole is at the other end to the shower, says the guy who has been timing how long it takes for water to run from one end of a shower tray to the other and fitting manual override switches to shower waste pump controllers, because the pumps can turn off before the last of the water reaches the plug hole (which doesn’t actually have a plug).


    So when you don’t actually have a tray and it becomes a “wet room” with the floor laid to a fall to the waste water outlet you may find the shower isn’t actually in the zone you think it should be in!


    Andy B
  • Former Community Member
    0 Former Community Member

    davezawadi:

    It looks rather as though the British disease of "gold plating" regulations is spreading throughout Europe. There appears to be no reason to including these inaccessible areas in walls floors and ceilings and most of the ideas seem to ignore the construction of real buidings. Next time I have a shower I must remember to take my drill in to add some itrems to the wall fixings.




     

    I suspect the argument regarding the 60mm zone is to trigger the same arguments regarding RCD protection etc of any circuit that may not be associated with the room containing the bath or shower  -  because it has the potential to influence safety of persons within the zone. Examples might be an immersion heater circuit feeding a HWS cylinder in an airing cupboard accessed from the bathroom - or socket outlet circuit in an adjoining room within a slim wall partition. Keep in mind that 50mm thick partitions are not that unusual "on the continent" and a voltage gradient could easily be present on the bathroom side of the wall


    Just a guess on my part though


    Regards


    OMS


  • 0

    It’s the plug hole as I know it.



    We already have a "fixed water outlet" in the current section 701 - I've always understood it to be the last point of the fixed water supply - i.e. a shower head (if fixed) or the union where the shower hose connects if the shower head is movable. If the same logic is being applied to a bath now, it's presumably the taps they're talking about.


    The extract only seems to relate to the location, rather than to zones - so it rather depends on what the requirements for things outsize zones but still within the location will be. In some large bathrooms it might make things slightly easier as some of the requirement presumably won't apply to the whole room anymore.


    There'a already a hint that equipment recessed into walls and ceilings has to meet the requirement of the zone that the wall/ceiling is the boundary for (last bit of 701.32.1) so an extra 60mm seems like a logical progression, especially considering "live wall" situations that OMS mentioned.


      - Andy.
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    Earlier this year I worked in a domestic wet room that measures 5.000 metres x 6.000 metres with welded vinyl flooring turned up the walls all around as skirting, some wet rooms are huge.


    On my theme of odd coincidences, a few days after I did that job I was looking at this forum and thought I must have been working close to where Dave Z lives as I read one of his posts and had a look at his website then had a look at Google maps. I had been to hire a ladder to get up to an extractor fan outlet and the hire shop was behind his house, when we were getting the ladder out of the rack I was literally at the bottom of his garden and had drove past his front door four times that day without realising it.


    Life is full of coincidences.


    Andy Betteridge
  • 0
    A couple of weeks ago I installed a electrical supply to a walk in bath with a lifting seat that is in the corner of a bedroom, the bedroom is big, probably at least 5.000 metres square.


    The customer asked where she was supposed to plug her vacuum cleaner in when I said I had removed a plug socket because it was too close to the bath, after a bit of discussion I discovered she actually has a cordless vacuum cleaner, so it wasn’t really an issue at all.


    Most people have got used to having a bathroom that the bath fits in tightly against three walls, but actually when considering the wording of the electrical regulations big bath and shower rooms that may also be a bedroom or utility room need to be considered as well.


    It is not unusual for ground floor wet rooms with a shower to also have the washing machine and tumble dryer in them as well or to have baths or showers in bedrooms.


    Andy Betteridge 

  • 0
    Doing a hotel project at the moment which is targeted at hen parties. In one bedroom there are three baths!
  • 0
    Hopefully the girls will behave better than the boys.

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