Other side- prohibited penetrations
What if the wall you are talking about is a shaft wall or an exit corridor? If you are in plan review and you see these panels on a shaft or a corridor, please take a very close look because these walls have different requirements in the building code. If you look at 713.8.1 you will see the code basically says, you can’t run anything into that shaft wall that does not serve a purpose in the shaft. So, your toggle bolt, it serves a purpose in the electrical room and unless that electrical room is a shaft, then it does not serve a purpose in the shaft, and it is a code violation.
Guess what, the code has a similar requirement when you are talking about a means of egress corridor. Once again, that toggle bolt is not serving a purpose in the egress corridor and therefor it cannot penetrate the wall, not even on one side.
So, when you are doing plan review, check out your electrical rooms and look at what is on the other side. If it is an egress path or a shaft, have a discussion with the design team.
Penetrations in a shaft enclosure shall be protected in accordance with Section 714 as required for fire barriers. Structural elements, such as beams or joists, where protected in accordance with Section 714 shall be permitted to penetrate a shaft enclosure.
713.8.1 Prohibited Penetrations
Penetrations other than those necessary for the purpose of the shaft shall not be permitted in shaft enclosures.
Join us tomorrow where we will go through a bit of a good, better, best solutions list for you to consider. For now, here is the code section referenced earlier.
**Code sections pulled from the 2009 IBC. I’m expecting this to be the same in the future code cycles but please check to confirm.