I have been to a few sites now where the inverters are located on concrete pads. Most have had 3 to 5 feet of clearance by the way of concrete in front o the inverter doors that makes or a nice surface to work on. Setting a ladder up here to work is and safe. The picture below is a different story. Roughly 8" of the pad then a 6" drop to stone that tapers away. Not a safe place to work. Not sure if this comes to play with the code and the clear working clearance in front o the equipment. If its not a violation it should be.
Thanks for bringing that up! I see several different concerns:
1. The surrounding surface is not flat and stable, making it unsuitable as a surface to stand on when working. I would consider this to be the most serious objection, although perhaps hard to identify with any particular wording in the Code. What if the entire surface, including under the equipment were compacted gravel?
2. The height to any part of the equipment from "the floor" is now 6" greater than it would have been with the pad extended. This could lead to a violation of rules about the mounting height of controls like disconnects and breakers. Taken to the extreme of a 6' offset instead of a 6" offset, it would clearly require using a ladder to work on the equipment, which could be, IMHO, a clear violation, depending on the rules that apply to the equipment. It is not part of the building (?!) wiring as a transformer would be, and so what does apply here? And where should the line be drawn? What if the same inverters were mounted on 6" high spacers on a level concrete floor? Would that be OK?
So, I will hang my argument mainly on part 1.
