Large Pentair Replacement Project - How to Surge Protect?

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qikbert

Member
Jul 9, 2023
18
Fort Myers, FL
I recently installed or replaced a fair amount of Pentair equipment for my pool at significant cost:
- Intellicenter upgrade kit
- Intellichlor IC40 salt system
- Intelliflo VSF 3THP pump
- Replaced 2 Globrites
- Replaced an iS4 Spa-side remote.

I live in Florida and we get a great deal of thunderstorms. I replaced the above equipment mostly because the gear that preceded it gradually died either due to wear and tear or from storms over time-- as an example, I previously had a (now antiquated) indoor touchscreen to control the prior automation system, but this died after multiple thunderstorms despite the fact that I had a whole-home surge protector the whole time.

Can someone recommend a surge protector for my pool equipment panel? I'm hopeful this may help protect my investment.
 

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qikbert said:
this died after multiple thunderstorms despite the fact that I had a whole-home surge protector the whole time
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It depends on which direction the surge comes from. If it comes from the grid/house, a surge protector sacrifices itself to (hopefully) save everything past it. If the strike is in the backyard, it already spread through the equipment when it gets to the surge protector.

They're still a great idea where folks are prone to surges, but can only do so much.
 
A powerline surge protector does not protect from lightning induced EMP coming from other wires.

A pool automation system has sensor and communication wires which act as antennas to receive the EMP and zap sensitive electrical components.
 
Although we are not in a lighting prone area, we used a Siemens first surge fs140 on the intellicenter panel for a small amount of insurance. In addition we used one of the ethernet surge protectors that @MyAZPool had recommended.
As your load center is currently fully populated, you would need to consolidate a couple of the breakers with a quadplex breaker. The first surge device is recommended to be installed closest to the feed. In the intellicenter load center, that is at the bottom.
1740361262770165891216876575570.jpg
 
JamesW said:
Breakers should be GFCI and quadplex breakers are not available in GFCI.
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Spd does not need gfci protection - in addition several of the op's circuits that dont require gfci protection could be landed on a quad which would allow for a full size dual pole 20 amp for the spd.
 

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This is a great resource

Electrical Surge Protection - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com

We installed the Siemens First Surge FS-140 on the pool panel which any competent electrician should be able to re-arrange your breakers to do. They will need to combine 2 of the non gfci breakers (blower/fill/nano) with a quad like this https://a.co/d/97DUTAd. They can then move one of those dual pole 20 amp breakers to the bottom for the surge

If you are hardwired to ethernet you'll want something like this https://a.co/d/inktMBl which we installed

And then since the rs-485 data lines are susceptible to surges in high activity areas something like this is rather cheap insurance. https://www.serialcomm.com/serial_r...85_surge_suppressor.product_general_info.aspx
 
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