Wall-mounted wire raceways for interior walls of shop

My advice would be to contact and ask a commercial wire puller, if anyone knows it should be them. I know the code keeps changing all the time and from what some have told me, its getting to the point where you almost have to get an actual electrician to do anything and also need permits else you can end up with voided insurance and more...but its my understanding it depends on the structure, ect.
Funny you can't find anything online.

Not sure how far any of this goes...

www.alberta.ca/electrical-codes-and-standards.aspx

Good advice. I'll definitely be running everything past the electrician and I will ask him what products are commercially available if any. I know kenmb has a lot of experience in electricity and wiring practices. Maybe he can comment on whether covered raceways on walls are available in Canada.  If they are they sure are slick for some things.

Seems like even among electricians and inspectors not everyone agrees on what the codes actually mean. For example, some inspectors seem to be fine with using an outlet as a junction, whereas others require a junction in the back of the box and pigtails to the outlet.

As to there being no difference in practice between a conduit and a raceway, I would also think that, but code doesn't always follow the same line of reasoning.

What do you know. I found a link to a Canadian site that shows what I was referring to. www.cerinc.ca/products/asr/alumsurface/ .  They would probably be more common in laboratories and universities where rooms and buildings are reconfigured from time to time.

In my case I'd like to use something like that to simply carry wires vertically up the wall where they'd break out into normal conduits.  Guess I'm really wondering if I could make a raceway out of some light-weight C channel and attach some kind of cover over it.

I've seen that kind of rigging in the oil patch and such, thats why I knew what you were talking about, seen it before lol.
Not sure about making your own, again you can get into a grey area and depending on who or under what circumstances someone ends up possibly looking at it later might bitch.

I run into such myself with a good friend who now is gone like so many of them unfortunately, he had several greenhouse and I did all his electrical for him. Was some pretty good pow wows over materials and costs at times, but I wouldn't relent on not cutting corners. Hadn't done any major work for several years when it was to do either the municipality or insurance, an inspector showed up one day. After going thru a lot of the main electrical panels and such, he asked my friend who his electrician was. He kind of didn't really know what to say, but then the inspector picked up on this and came out and said, look there is nothing wrong with any of it, technically it is all done properly, its the cosmetics that show it wasn't done by an actual electrician. Hearing that kind of loosened up Dave's tongue lol and after explaining who and what went on, he asked exactly how the guy could tell. Appearently it was how I had routed the wires in the main panels for the secondary circuits, while I I had them clamped into the holes in the box, had drip loops and all, it was the more direct way I had routed them, rather than run feet upon feet of wire around the inside of the box like you see the pros do. As the inspector said, technically there was nothing wrong with any of it, but it just wasn't the way the industry or trade likes to see it done. I won't deny I was rather tickled when he told me everything had passes and what the inspector had said. My friend also acknowledged how now he understood why I had been a prick about using proper materials and more. Now this was few years back, would it pass today, dunno. I know anything I do here at home, again I don't cut corners either.

I follow what you are saying but probably, in the end, some big conduit and pull boxes closer together than you would normally do should get you where you want to be.

Data centers are a good example where the floor is elevated a couple feet and then metal raceway is used with hinged covers. Since computer stuff keeps changing, so does the cabling. Floor tiles lift up and you can access the conduits. I don't work on that stuff but have seen it often. A few buildings will use those raceway along the wall for control cabling (Ethernet, fiber). For power cabling, in industrial settings, it's all done with cable tray and cables ty wrapped to the tray. You can go down walls with it if you want. But I don't see anyone running single strands of wire for lights in cable tray. It is Teck cable or its in conduit. I suppose when you get down to actually doing it, you end up doing it how everyone else does.

Code says something like the first 6' above floor level needs to be protected from mechanical injury. That is not specifically laid out so in theory you could make your own I suppose.

The electrical code book is interesting. I have spent many hours in it doing design work. Stuff I can't just look up on line. The thing is, even if you think you can do it (make your own tray for instance) and can find a code rule that implies you can do it, that does not mean an electrical inspector will pass it. Worked with many electricians who know this as a fact of life.

Good planning should get you where you want to go.

Best thing I did was put my main panel near middle of shop side wall then installed sub panels on each end wall. That way I don't need to go back all the way to the main panel for adding a 50A plug somewhere. I put conduit under the floor to feed each sub. Think I put some smaller empty conduit beside it too, can't remember.

If you wanted too, you can wire your shop completely with conduit and run empty conduit right beside your existing. It's easy to pull through empty conduit in the future.

I beleive that pre made cable duct with hinged covers can be bought through most electrical distributors and be mounted on wall. It may get pricey though.

The code for "protection from mechanical injury" will be one of the main rules to look into and understand. It's why Teck cable would be used often with cable tray. We don't even look at code book much on basic jobs. If adding fiber in an existing electrical tray, it is armored cable we buy. And just put it in. Trying to understand the code book and what a guy can do and can't to save on getting a spool of unprotected cat6 vs buying armored just never crossed our minds. And even if we could do it, the customer would most likely say "why didn't you use armored like all the other wiring, I don't care if you save $200". How something looks does play a role often in how a job is planned and done.