UL 1363 (Relocatable Power Taps)

UL 1363 is a product safety standard. It covers relocatable power taps: cord-connected assemblies with multiple receptacles, intended to be moved, which extend one supply receptacle to several. Most of our catalog is this kind of product. Testing under the standard examines construction, spacing, wiring, strain relief, temperature rise, and the behavior of the assembly under fault conditions.

What it does not cover matters as much. UL 1363 is not a procurement rule and says nothing about where a product or its components were made. It is not a surge performance rating; the performance of a surge protective device is assessed under UL 1449.

The standard also draws its own line around health care use, and the line is in its scope rather than in any manufacturer's advice. The sixth edition, published in July 2023, states that relocatable power taps "are not suitable for use in Category 2 (General Patient Care) Spaces or Category 1 (Critical Patient Care) Spaces or Patient Care Vicinities of health care facilities." The same section excludes taps intended for use with medical equipment, including those fitted with hospital grade receptacles or hospital grade plugs. So our published caution against using relocatable power taps in general patient care or critical patient care areas restates what the standard says about itself.

Two adjacent product types are named and set outside this standard. Special Purpose Relocatable Power Taps are covered by UL 1363A, and Cord-and-Plug-Connected Health Care Facility Outlet Assemblies by UL 2930. Both are Outlines of Investigation rather than published standards. What matters to a specifier is narrower than what either document requires: a product listed to UL 1363 is not listed to those, and a requirement written against one of them is not satisfied by a UL 1363 listing.

A relocatable power tap is also not a substitute for permanent branch-circuit wiring, and a listing does not change that.

UL 1363 and the Buy American Act answer different questions and are assessed by different bodies against different criteria. UL 1363 is a product safety standard, and a listing to it is a certifying laboratory's determination that the product was tested and met that standard. The Buy American Act is a federal procurement rule about where a product and its components were made, and it involves no safety testing at all.

A product can hold a UL 1363 listing and not satisfy the Buy American Act, and it can satisfy the Buy American Act while holding no safety listing at all. A solicitation requiring both requires evidence of both, and a supplier answering a question about one by citing the other has not answered it.