Electric_Part II

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geomarq

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Aug 4, 2010
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Now that my grading is done, I'm ready to tackle the electrical. Had a $1500 quote to do the job (not including the timer and trench work), so I need to save where I can, plus I like a challenge..

I made this diagram to try and understand what's needed.
Any comments? First time working with THHN wires.

- all the neutrals and grounds will be joined together at an outdoor pool-approved junction box, and pigtailed out as necessary
- I upgraded the needed wire size for the pump, not sure if 12g. is sufficient for the convenience out light and lights (due to the 160' run)
- can the pool light and deck lights all be on the same circuit/breaker? would 12g ok?
- after speaking with the inspector regarding an outdoor subpanel, I'm going this route instead. They want a permanent covered structure to cover the panel and I have future plans for a shed/cabana that I don't want them to know about.
- I'm assuming the ground wire can be insulated and green; also not sure if code requires certain wire colors; someone mentioned it's preferred
 

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Several problems that I can see, a few major.

1) You need to put in a subpanel by the pool. 160' is a really long way to run all those circuits out there, IMO.
2) A 10 amp dipole breaker is not big enough for the pool pump. You need at least a 15 amp. At 160 feet, you need 10 AWG wire for the pump, IMO.

3) The pool light needs to be on a separate, dedicated circiut that has a GFCI breaker. Plus, the pool light needs to go back to a junction box located several feet from the pool deck since the light niche will be wet. The linesthen go back to the power source.

Now the dangerous stuff.
1) You have a neutral coming off the pool pump. A 240 VAC pool pump has no neutral. Not really dangerous, I guess, just wrong. You show 2, 10 amp single pole breakers in your diagram. You need a single, dipole breaker there, 15 amp.

2) The dangerous thing is you have shared neutrals across the pool light, convenience outlet, and deck light. Thats really a no no unless you know what your doing. Even then, you really can only share a neutral on 2 circuits and you have to make darn sure they are on different legs or you will have 240 volts running on the same neutral, out of phase. In your house, you have the white neutrals tied together in a light or outlet box, but thats only one one circuit. Same with the grounds. Dont tie them togther. Each circuit needs a separate hot, neutral, and ground back to the box.

3) The other thing is bonding the pool. The bonding wire for the pool has nothing to do with the ground back to the service panel. In fact, it doesn't connect to the rest of the ground wires for the individual circuits at all.
I really suggest having the electrician look at this. Wiring up a pool is difficult and there are a lot of pitfalls. Can you do your own electrical work, pull a permit, and have it inspected in your jurisdiction?
 
- @ 230v the pump only requires a 10amp breaker & 14g wire at no more than 50'; so a 15amp & 12g should be enough. I think
- clear on the pool light issue, thx.
- I'll double check the pump wiring, I know it can be configured to 115v or 230v; haven't looked yet and I also realized it needs to plug into a locking receptcle
- I goofed on the neutrals; needs to be all seperate
- the bonding wire get's "lugged" at the pump and the grounds get grounded there also (the pump ground); i thought that's what I got from the elctrician when he came to look.. no??

I'm trying to plan and setup this up so a family friend (union electrician) can come and double check my setup and make all final connections.. Thx. in advance.
 
geomarq said:
- @ 230v the pump only requires a 10amp breaker & 14g wire at no more than 50'; so a 15amp & 12g should be enough. I think
Click to expand...
You need a 15 amp breaker. I dont even know if you can buy a 10 amp dipole. I'm sure maybe they xist, but i've never seen one. Use a 15 amp, 10 AWG wire. 12 AWG wire is too small for 160 feet.

geomarq said:
- the bonding wire get's "lugged" at the pump and the grounds get grounded there also (the pump ground); i thought that's what I got from the elctrician when he came to look.. no??
Click to expand...
No. Even some licensed electricians dont understand bonding a pool. A bonding wire needs to be run around the pool and attached to the pool every 10 feet (i think 10 feet, i dont have 680 in front of me), with a lug. The wire is bare, 8 AWG copper. Attched to this main bond wire is another 8 AWG wire from the pump lug, and any other metal pice of eqipment such as a heater, ladder anchor, stair anchor, chlorine generator, etc. This bonding wire does NOT attach into any of the ground wires that goes back to the panel. The purpose is to make sure that there is no potential difference between you and the water.
 
I sincerely do not understand how Bonding on pool work ever got confused with ground. Its spelled out in the code really clearly. I am going to invent a time machine, figure out who instigated the confusion, and go back and slap him.

Pool bonding is JUST to make sure that all of the pool area metal is at the same potential. That way you will never create a circuit between two pieces of pool-associated metal that is not already in place, with a better conductor (that better copper) than your wet body. Thats it.
 
Lets take this one step at a time.
First and foremost I highly recommend you installing a sub-panel to feed the pool equipment. But if you're determined to run individual circuits lets make this as safe as possible.

1. Pool Pump, 230 volts. - We need to know the full load amps on this pump. Since you say 10 amps will do it, I'll use that to start. You need a double pole breaker and it's going to take a #10 wire to take care of the voltage drop at starting current. You're also probably going to need to 15amp breaker too. There has to be three wires ran from the panel to the pump, L1, L2 & Ground.

2. Convenience Receptacle. - I recommend using a GFCI breaker in the panel and you'll need #6 wire for a 20 amp or a #8 for 15 amps.

3. Pool Light. - We need to know which light you're planning on using to calculate but I'll use 500watts to be safe. That requires a 10 amp GFCI breaker and #12 wiring.

4. Deck Lights. - See convenience receptacle for breaker & wire sizes. Also I assume you mean 3-way switches for the lights as there are no 2-way switches.

All grounds and neutrals have to be ran singly back to the main panel.

As BK said, bonding has to be a #8 bare wire securely attached to the pool and any and all metal within 5' of the water. That includes any equipment that has water running through it (pump, SWCG, heater, etc). Any connectors have to be approved for bonding use.

In your present scenario you have to buy:
(1) 15amp GFCI double pole breaker,
(2) 20 amp GFCI single pole breakers,
(1) 10 amp GFCI single pole breakers,
(500') #10awg thhn wire,
(1000') #6awg thhn wire,
(500') #12awg thhn wire,
(300') #8awg bare copper wire,
(400') 3/4" Rigid conduit,
(400') 1-1/4" Rigid conduit,
(1) 20 amp receptacle,
(2) 3-way switches,
(6) weather proof device boxes,
Misc. weatherproof covers,
Misc conduit fittings,
Misc wiring accessories.

With that list $1500 doesn't sound too bad.
 
Bama Rambler said:
With that list $1500 doesn't sound too bad.
Click to expand...

I second that. If you bought all that, you would spend an enormous amount of money. That much THHN wire alone will be close to $600 alone. The price comes down dramatically if you just put in a subpanel. You would not need near the amount of #6 wire either. On top of that, it's very difficult, if not impossible to get much bigger than #12 wire around a recepticle screw. I'd revisit the subpanel requirments with the inspector. There is nothing in the NEC that says you cant have an outdoor, uncovered subpanel. Local requirements might be different in your area, but given the power needs and distance, I would really try and work with him. I also know that a couple of pool automation systems such as Pentair's are designed to act as a subpanel and they are located outdoors all the time.
 

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Your first problem is that you have the voltage set to 240 volts and second thing is that you have the amperage set to 10 amps. If that's the pump you should upsize for 15 amps unless you can get a 10 amp double pole breaker.

They should be set to 120 volts and 20 amps for the receptacles. You can't calculate for 10 amps unless you change the breaker size that's feeding it to 10 amps, which I don't think you can do by code.
 
For the pump, you can use #10 at 240 VAC. But, for the 120VAC plugs on a 20 amp breaker you need #6. The reason is that the resisitance is going to be very high on #12 wire if you push that current with only 120 volts over that distance. At 240 volts, you can push the same amount of current on a smaller wire.
Think of voltage as pressure in a pipe and current as the water. You can push a lot more water at higher pressure thru a smaller pipe. To push the same amount of water under lower pressure, you need bigger pipe. Water in a pipe is not EXACTLY the same as applied to electricity, but the analogy does work.

As an aside, those big, huge high tension wires you see that move power across a great distance are only moving a few amps. But, the current needed to push that little bit of power over a great distance can be well over 100,000 volts, and even as much as 1 million. In other words it takes a big, big wire to move only a few amps a greater distance.
 
In electrical, its a better practice to size "a little larger" than exactly whats planned, to allow for growth down the road. Re-pulling a larger size wire down the road over that kind of length can be really hard ($$$) to nigh impossible if you size everything "just the minimum" and try to get by on the cheap. Instead of rounding the requirements down, round them UP.

I also would advise putting in a sub panel, it will save you money now, and later when you want to add something.
 
bk406 said:
I'd revisit the subpanel requirments with the inspector. There is nothing in the NEC that says you cant have an outdoor, uncovered subpanel. Local requirements might be different in your area, but given the power needs and distance, I would really try and work with him. I also know that a couple of pool automation systems such as Pentair's are designed to act as a subpanel and they are located outdoors all the time.
Click to expand...

Thank you, I was a little concerned. My pad has a stand alone outdoor 40 Amp 230V sub-panel about 180' from the main panel in the house. The inspectors here are known to be picky but there was no issue on that at all. I over dimensioned the sub-panel, as suggested here, because I may add a micro-pool house in the future. I'm no pro, but I read a lot about this stuff and I've been doing electrical since I was a kid, and you are getting good advice here.
 
Just a related note for you, while you're doing the electric now and digging the ground, plan for the potential for a heater down the road.

In my case, our equipment is 60+ feet from the main breaker, and the original electric was sized only for the pumps. If we want to add a heater (specifically a heat pump), we'll need to dig in an entirely new line, which at this point is under concrete, a shed, and risks hitting the existing electrical lines.

So I think the advice to put in a sub-panel is good, and make sure it has room for a 50 or 60amp circuit for a future heat pump if that ever strikes you or the next owner. Of course, I didn't see any location information, so maybe this is a moot point.

Good luck!
 
Thats actually good advice. Running 100 amps of power out to a pool subpanel really should be considered. With 100 amps, you will have more than enough power for anything you might need. Thats 24,000 watts of power. A typical heat pump, pool pump, chlorine generator, pool light, deck lights, and convience outlet may need around 13,000 watts if you max out the convience outlet and light circuits. 60 amps isnt enough. 80 to 100 amps would be prefered.
 
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