Electrical rooms are very important for building operation, providing a hub to

supply electrical power for equipment. These rooms also contain key protection
systems, and in larger installations they often include transformers. The main
advantage of a well-designed electrical room is providing a central location
where technical staff members can manage and service building power
systems.

In general, electrical installations must meet a series of requirements in terms of

load served, clearances for technical staff, and how electrical installations
interact with other building systems. There are also application-specific
requirements, but the general specifications apply for the vast majority of
projects.

The general requirements for electrical rooms are covered in Article 110 of the
National Electrical Code (2011 Edition). This blog post references some
requirements, but its purpose is to be informational, not to be used in place of the
NEC. The best recommendation is to work with qualified design professionals, who
are familiarized with all applicable codes and standards for each project.

Importance of Load Calculation

The incoming service capacity of electrical installations is determined based on

the load calculation. Accuracy is very important: undersized service wiring is
dangerous and may lead to voltage issues, but oversized conductors represent
an unnecessary expense.

The service end box is also selected based on load calculation, and it is normally
installed on an external wall. This simplifies the installation of service wiring,
providing a convenient but protected entrance to the building.

Energy efficiency measures can drastically reduce the electrical load on a

building, once their individual contributions are added up. This is reflected as
reduced wire ampacity and transformer kVA, allowing service equipment to be
sized smaller.

Working Space and Clearances

Working space is another important consideration: it can be measured from left-

to-right, right-to-left, or with respect to the centerline of equipment. NEC Table
110.26(A)(1) provides the minimum clearances required for working space in an
electrical room, and the following apply in the case of 0-600V installations:

3 feet between insulated materials

3-½ feet between grounded equipment

4 feet between exposed live parts

A fundamental requirement is providing enough space for all doors to open at

least 90°. This influences the width, depth and height of working spaces. Note that
communication systems are not subject to the same working space requirements
as electrical installations - other NEC requirements apply in that case, as well as
other standards that are specific for the IT industry.

Although different pieces of equipment can have overlapping working spaces in

some cases, it must be kept clear at all times. Placing other equipment within
working spaces or using them as storage are not allowed by the code.

Electrical rooms must also have properly-sized entrances/exits, which must be

kept clear from obstructions at all times. If service capacity is greater than 1200
Amperes, the following requirements apply:

Two exits must be provided.

Doors located less than 25 feet

from working space must
open in the exit direction, and
must be openable with simple
pressure (panic hardware).

For installations where the

service entrance is above
1000 kVA, at least 7 feet of
clearance are required
between different pieces of
equipment. Between the
equipment and walls, 5 feet of
clearance are required as a minimum.

Mechanical Rooms
A mechanical room or a boiler room is a
room or space in a building dedicated to
the mechanical equipment and its
associated electrical equipment, as
opposed to rooms intended for human
occupancy or storage. Unless a building
is served by a centralized heating plant,
the size of the mechanical room is usually
proportional to the size of the building. A
small building or home may have at most
a utility room but in large buildings
mechanical rooms can be of
considerable size, often requiring multiple
rooms throughout the building, or even
occupying one or more complete floors.

Mechanical rooms typically house the following equipment:

 Air handlers
 Boilers
 Chillers
 Heat exchangers
 Water heaters and tanks
 Water pumps (for domestic, heating/cooling, and firefighting water)
 Main distribution piping and valves
 Sprinkler distribution piping and pumps
 Back-up electrical generators
 Elevator machinery

Other HVAC (heating, ventilation and air-conditioning) equipment

Equipment in mechanical rooms is often operated and maintained by a

stationary engineer or a maintenance technician. Modern buildings use control
systems to manage HVAC cycles, lighting, communications, and life safety
equipment. Often, the control system hardware is located in the mechanical
room and monitored or accessed remotely.

Rooms with only electrical or electronic equipment are not considered

mechanical rooms but are instead called electrical rooms.
Materials recovery facility

Clean MRF

A clean MRF accepts recyclable materials that have already been separated at
the source from municipal solid waste generated by either residential or
commercial sources. There are a variety of clean MRFs. The most common are
single stream where all recyclable material is mixed, or dual stream MRFs, where
source-separated recyclables are delivered in a mixed container stream
(typically glass, ferrous metal, aluminum and other non-ferrous metals, PET [No.1]
and HDPE [No.2] plastics) and a mixed paper stream including corrugated
cardboard boxes, newspapers, magazines, office paper and junk mail. Material
is sorted to specifications, then baled, shredded, crushed, compacted, or
otherwise prepared for shipment to market.

Mixed-waste processing facility (MWPF)/ Dirty MRF

Manual material triage for recycling.

A mixed-waste processing system, sometimes referred to as a dirty MRF, accepts

a mixed solid waste stream and then proceeds to separate out designated
recyclable materials through a combination of manual and mechanical sorting.
The sorted recyclable materials may undergo further processing required to meet
technical specifications established by end-markets while the balance of the
mixed waste stream is sent to a disposal facility such as a landfill. Today, MWPFs
are attracting renewed interest as a way to address low participation rates for
source-separated recycling collection systems and prepare fuel products and/or
feedstocks for conversion technologies. MWPFs can give communities the
opportunity to recycle at much higher rates than has been demonstrated by
curbside or other waste collection systems. Advances in technology make
today’s MWPF different and, in many respects better, than older versions.

The percentage of residuals (unrecoverable recyclable or non-program

materials) from a properly operated clean MRF supported by an effective public
outreach and education program should not exceed 10% by weight of the total
delivered stream and in many cases it can be significantly below 5%.[citation
needed] A dirty MRF recovers between 5% and 45% of the incoming material as
recyclables,[citation needed] then the remainder is landfilled or otherwise
disposed. A dirty MRF can be capable of higher recovery rates than a clean MRF,
since it ensures that 100% of the waste stream is subjected to the sorting process,
and can target a greater number of materials for recovery than can usually be
accommodated by sorting at the source. However, the dirty MRF process results
in greater contamination of recyclables, especially of paper. Furthermore, a
facility that accepts mixed solid waste is usually more challenging and more
expensive to site. Operational costs can be higher because it is more labor-
intensive.

Wet MRF

A wet materials recovery facility

Around 2004, new mechanical biological treatment technologies were beginning

to utilise wet MRFs. These combine a dirty MRF with water, which acts to densify,
separate and clean the output streams. It also hydrocrushes and dissolves
biodegradable organics in solution to make them suitable for anaerobic
digestion.

MRF layout

Once the unit operations to process the materials are selected, the equipment
needed to carry out the operations must be chosen and installed. The
capabilities, reliability, maintenance requirements, flexibility, safety, efficiency,
environmental effects, market specifications, and costs of the various alternatives
will govern the selection of equipment for the facility. Although there are many
possible combinations for grouping the separation processes within the facility,
the operations should follow certain guidelines:

1. Pathways should be as straight as possible

2. The system should be designed to encounter changes in the feed stream

3. Conveyance and free fall to move material should be maximized

4. The adjustability of the system should be maximized

5. The independence of devices should be maximized

These guidelines allow the entire operation to continue functioning if there are
any equipment failures or unexpected materials in the stream. Equipment
redundancy and easy maintenance are other factors that will help prevent the
need to ever shut down operations, but will add to the overall costs of the facility.
Facility Design

The facility layout will include the

unloading area for the delivered
materials, the presorting area and tipping
floor, the area requirements for the unit
separation operations, the storage and
transporting areas, the sizing for the
parking and traffic flow patterns for the
facility, and additional buffer space.
Scales will be utilized to weigh both
incoming and outgoing materials, and
there will be a queuing area for trucks at
both the entrances of the scale and the
facility. The unloading area will be large
enough to accommodate a few days
worth of material in case problems occur within the facility. Large volumes of
materials may need to be stored to gain better leverage in the market or during
periods when the markets are poor. The interior of the facility will be large enough
to allow changes in interior layout and the addition of new equipment to
accommodate increases in population and the possibility for program expansion.
There should be a minimum number of interior columns to allow maximum
flexibility for equipment placement and the possibility to rearrange the layout in
the future. The ceiling should be high enough to accommodate equipment
specification. Conveyor lines, air classifiers, shredders and other processing
equipment can be as tall as forty feet in larger MRFs.32 The design of the facility
will also include space for employee facilities and possible touring and meeting
areas. The facility will be enclosed to control noise. Since shredding, baling and
screening are dust-producing operations, dust collection systems and fans will be
incorporated into the facility design. To combat the odors that result within the
enclosed facility, a filtered ventilation system will be installed. Air emissions controls
will be installed to prevent any pollution that could negatively impact the
environment. Automatic sprinklers and control devices will be installed throughout
the facility to suppress and prevent fires from spreading within the facility. Facility
workers will be required to use hearing protection, hard hats, and dust masks for
their protection.
Utility Room

A utility room is a room within a house where equipment not used in day-to-day
activities is kept. "Utility" refers to an item which is designed for usefulness or
practical use, so in turn most of the items kept in this room have functional
attributes. A utility room is generally the area where laundry is done, and is the
descendant of the scullery. Utility room is more commonly used in British English,
while North American English generally refer to this room as a Uses

Laundry equipment within a room

The utility room has several uses but typically functions as an area to do laundry.
This room contains laundry equipment such as a washing machine, tumble dryer,
ironing boards and clothes iron. The room is also used for closet organization and
storage. The room would normally contain a second coat closet which is used to
store seasonal clothing such as winter coats or clothing which are no longer used
daily. Storage spaces would contain other appliances which would generally be
in the kitchen if it was in usage daily. Furnaces and the water heater are sometime
incorporated to the room as well. Shelving and trash may sometimes be seen at
this area as not to congest the other parts of the house. laundry room, except in
the American Southeast. In Australian English laundry is the usual term.