Upgrade Of Pool Pump, System, Equipment

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Im pretty sure that is a Pentair Amerilite. (Formerly American Prodcuts Co which was bought by Pentairyears ago).

You dont need a stopper to plug the conduit. The Cable which comes with the light is designed to be permenantly underwater.
You will need a light switch, whether existing or new. You need a way to turn the light on and off. Most poeple put their lights on a timer, but that's totally optional. If you want a timer, get a Intermatic T104R at Lowes for about 60ish.

If you get a fixture with long enough cable (you can order them with incremental cable lengths), then you may not need a J-Box (check your local building code). Just run the light cable all the way continuously to the light switch.

If you order a fixture with a short cable, then you will need a J-Box and the wires from the J Box back to the switch must be Black, White and Green, THHN or THWN rated for 600V

If there is a grounding lug inside the light niche, then along with the light cable, include a green ground wire and connect the ground wire to the lug, and yes, protect it generously with potting compound. The green wire must be type THHN or THWN rated for 600V. 12 AWG will be fine.

If you have to deal with the niche bonding, the bond wire is connected to the back side of the light niche. Not the front side. The bond wire does not go inside conduit.
It does not require any potting compound

Depending on how many sharp 90 degree bends there are in the conduit run( there shouldn't be any sharp ones, all electrical conduits should have sweeping 90s), you may or not need cable pulling lube. The conduit is likely 1 inch or 3/4 inch and is usually more than sufficient t to make for an easy pull. Chances are good that you wont need any pulling lube.

The intelliflo has built in timer. You wont need another for the pump.

I agree on ditching the aux pump

The 2650 sounds high. He would proabably just hire a electrical contractor to come do it and some % as his take for arranging it. Thats usually how that works.
 
Got it, that is the info I was looking for. Lol, I know, that number was exorbitant, I think he was hoping we'd just jump at it to be done with the whole matter.

I didn't get in the pool and measure the depth of the niche but I think we ought to be good now that we have the light identified.

OK just got off the phone with Bob, ought not to need a Jbox, and according to my measurements a 50 foot cord will be long enough, I think it will take around 30 feet of that.

Next move, order the light. I'm thinking Amazon over Ebay, vs. one of these online stores ? Amazon will stand behind the product if purchased through them or fulfilled by them is my understanding.

Going to save so much money on this, I'm thinking about the LED and will have to see if the Amerilite comes in an LED version. I want to just get the light here ASAP and get this done.

Hey this Pentair SwimQuip light looks a lot like mine, and it says "heavy copper shell", which matches mine. The cord coming out looks the same also. Dave here is a curveball, there is a green wire inside the cord, is that the bonding ground wire and there because the shell is copper, so it is sort of built in? Or I still need the other green bonding wire to the niche?
Such an elementary question but I don't want anyone to get electrocuted !
http://www.pentairpool.com/products/lighting-white-swimquip-lights-167.htm

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Next challenge will be staining on pool walls which I believe to be from algae. When I was a young fellow that was treated with an "acid bath" once. Is there anything really effective I can do while part of the wall is exposed, ie. treating directly whether with brush and cleaning agent such as TSP or ? ? ? To at least get that part clean ?

And one final question, it is something I notice while vacuuming. There are a couple of places on the pool bottom where it seems like the plaster, when applied, wasn't smoothed down perfectly. Ie. part of it slumped downhill and wasn't troweled back over. The largest place is about 10" wide and there's an irregular linear ~1/3" step-off or lip. The vacuum wheel went bumpety bump on it and indeed there's a dark jagged line there, probably dirt or algae caught there. No rust so I don't think there's rebar showing. By the way, the pool has been re-plastered at one point long ago. Had to get a picture of it at this point with the cloudy water and being underwater as it is. Wondering if at some point I can go down there and smooth it out/sand it down with something mildly abrasive or if I should just leave it the h__l alone (probably best idea ?).
 
Thanks for the tip, 99.

I'll wade through them tomorrow, this looks like it would do the trick. Still need the extra green wire, right ?

50' Cord, PureWhite SwimQuip LED Pool Light LPL-F3W-120-50-PSQ | J J Electronics

About the internal bonding wire, the niche I think is just plaster. So is it the housing of the light that needs the extra grounding wire ? Sorry to perseverate about this but etc etc. as I said I have a healthy fear of electricity.
 
Funny I just noticed that the LED I linked is also made/branded by SwimQuip. Way back when, that used to be a prominent brand here in Southern California.

I had too much sun in the last few days and didn't feel like getting in the pool at noon to measure and examine the niche but I need to do that. I want to see where there may be some metal and so forth.

The old conduit was brass I believe, which meant the bonding wire wasn't necessary ? That's why I'm still scratching my head over how to handle this.
 
With my lights, there is a special screw that is specified for bonding the light to the niche and presumably the niche is further bonded via a copper wire that is encased/embedded within the gunite. When I redid my pool equipment pad, there was a heavy gauge copper wire there that I preserved and eventually connected to the ground bar in the pool breaker box. I also bonded all my equipment that was required to be bonded (two pumps and the heater) and I connected all those to the ground bar as well. So in my case, they are all bonded and subsequently grounded, too.

The green ground wire is for safety and may or may not be attached to the metal housing of the light but I think it would. While bonding and grounding are two separate things, they can ultimately end up being the same thing. The goal of bonding is to prevent metal items from having any potential differences between them. If you have a voltage drop from one metal item to another, that means you have current flow and that is bad. So bonding ensures no such thing. Now ultimately, that bonding wire could be connected to ground but it doesn't have to. Connected to ground or not, it still serves its purpose.

Grounding is there for safety as I mentioned. Its purpose is to provide a path to ground in case there is a mishap with the black or white wires. Normally black is hot and white is neutral (the return path for the current) but if for some reason there could be a problem that shorts the black or white to some metal within the structure. If there is no ground wire, a person could touch that metal (an outer housing maybe or a screw or anything that conducts electricity) and the current will flow through the person to ground. That is bad. With the ground wire, that current now has a path through ground instead of through YOU to ground.

So you need to make sure the light you purchase is designed for the niche you have so that bonding is maintained. Further, any light you purchase absolutely must have the green wire but I can't imagine that any new light you purchase wouldn't have a ground/green wire!
 
Divin Dave said:
If you order a fixture with a short cable, then you will need a J-Box and the wires from the J Box back to the switch must be Black, White and Green, THHN or THWN rated for 600V

If there is a grounding lug inside the light niche, then along with the light cable, include a green ground wire and connect the ground wire to the lug, and yes, protect it generously with potting compound. The green wire must be type THHN or THWN rated for 600V. 12 AWG will be fine.

If you have to deal with the niche bonding, the bond wire is connected to the back side of the light niche. Not the front side. The bond wire does not go inside conduit.
It does not require any potting compound



The intelliflo has built in timer. You wont need another for the pump.
Click to expand...


Closing in on it, becoming more clear to me, it is sinking in, thanks for sticking with me.

Hope to be out there this afternoon.
 
Albert,
regarding the grounding

First, let me just say that the Bonding wire, which is to be 8AWG bare solid wire, is NOT a gound wire. Lets not get those confused.
The green wire in the light cord goes to ground in the Jbox or switch, or both if they are both installed.

In addition, there should be another green wire installed inside the conduit and connected to the ground lug inside the light niche (if there is a lug) and on the other end, to teh J-box or light switch or both.


The light niche actually should already be bonded. A bare number 8 AWG solid wire connected to the back side of the niche. The bond wire never is inside a conduit. Its buried directly in the ground. Here is something of a tutorial about pool bonding Pool Bonding 101: Why Handrails, Coping, and Water Could Shock You.
 

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Here it is, just all plaster and cement on the pool side, there is the metal conduit, I think it is red brass, with the old light cord coming through it.

Thanks Dave, yes I was getting a little confused with the two different green wires. So the light itself has a green ground wire but the niche should be grounded as well. I don't see anything metal in the niche, but presumably there is rebar behind it ? Is that what needs the bonding wire ? When we trench down I wonder if we'll be able to confirm what we need to know ?
IMG_20150826_155324.jpg

Edit, wait a sec, is that a thin rim of metal around the circumference of the edge of the niche, attached to where you put the screw ? Just noticed that when looking at the large version of this photo.

Never had any shocking problems with this pool, does that mean the fixture is probably already bonded properly ?
 
Have another couple of problems, will document now even though we want to address one thing at a time.

The other ones:

That jagged lip looking thing on the bottom is where it is as if a great big piece of plaster has "flaked" off the bottom. That line is about 10-12" long I'd say.

Is there any super reliable way to patch it ? Can it be patched underwater ? Or will the whole dang pool need to be re-plastered vs. just pretend it is not there ? There are a couple of other very small places like that also.

IMG_20150826_154914.jpg

Another small consideration, this one really doesn't trouble me too much, the deck has subsided an inch or so on one side.
IMG_20150826_155649.jpg

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Last thing for the moment, the walls have developed an lovely leopard spot sort of pattern, this happened since the algae:



IMG_20150826_155357.jpg
 

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I will look for it, that is a great question. Not sure what exactly to look for and where but I will ask Bob and if need be we can consult with Mike. However, another factor I think I understand is that when metal conduit was used the bonding wire wasn't necessary as the conduit itself bonded the niche.

Bob understands the whole concept about the bonding so if if there's some metal in that niche I'm sure we can attach a wire.

Trying to think as to whether the metal we can see is just a small frame for the screw attachment, or more likely part of an entire housing. The pool has been replastered at least once, I wonder if they slopped new plaster inside the niche and covered any metal parts that might be in there. The thing is, some of the inside of the niche is slighty "rocky", as if it is from original cement.

I see a lot of pre-fab niches for sale on the internet, but have no idea how they were making them 50 years ago. Did they even have ready-made inserts back then ?
 
Well, the conduit may act as the bonding wire but then the conduit still needs electrically connected to the metal housing of your light. However, it is quite likely that the metal housing of the light is connected to the green wire and that, of course, is tied into the junction box and connected there along with the conduit so THAT is likely how it was done for your pool.

Yeah, from your pic, it isn't easy to tell but I dunno why anyone would fill a metal niche with concrete and/or plaster as there is no reason to. Your light mounting does look like just a simple ring that was embedded.
 
Just had an idea come to me amidst the confusion while driving to work this morning.

Leave an inch or two of old brass conduit, attach bonding wire to it. We'll ask Mike the electrician for an opinion on this also, may he can come over for a look.
Mom is out of town for the weekend, I may just order that LED light as my next move.
BTW I saved the brass screw that fixes the light to the niche.
Yeah this is the one mos confusing part of this for me.
Can I take a measurement of current/potential between the housing and junction box? I think I read that somewhere -- will do more reading up on this and again thanks for sticking with me.
 
You can measure for continuity between one metal structure and another. Put your meter in the lowest range for resistance (some have a 'continuity' setting) and simply measure between two pieces of metal. If the reading is very high, there is no connection. If the reading is very low, you have a connection. Just make sure that the probes are contacting good clean metal as corrosion can give a false reading as it usually is highly resistive.
 
http://www.troublefreepool.com/threads/6850-Sanity-check-on-pool-light-bonding

Here's a thread where a guy mentioned his metal niche was covered in plaster, up to 1/2" in places. That makes me wonder but I don't want to go aggressively chiseling away in there, hmmm . . .

OK about doing the measuring, we can check that. Just need to find something in the niche to measure it from. Is there such a thing as a niche that isn't made out of metal ? Does that ring to which the light attaches count ?
 
I don't know and yes. Yeah, I dunno about chiseling away in there. Your call on that one. :)

Here is what I would do. Use that same screw from your light and screw it into the niche/mounting ring/whatever and loop a piece of wire around it of whatever length is convenient for you and then you'll have a good connection there and you can then measure to wherever you need to to determine if you have a connection.
 
Great idea.

Found some plaster patch online, will consider taking the water down to do just that one larger area, I think they call it a delamination. Replastering is just too much $$ to lay at my mom's doorstep at this time and I think if I can get a decent patch that'd be satisfactory.

Good grief what did I get myself into?

:)
 

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