new pump is 220V

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digger01

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Apr 23, 2008
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I am replacing my 1 speed pump which is wired with 110v. I have 2 red and one green wire. The pool is 5 years old so my exisiting wiring is good.


I got a 1 hp 2 speed pump but it needs 220v wlectrical supply. Can I just change the circuit breakers in the fuse box??? The wiring is very thick I would guess its 12g or heavier..which can be checked. Is there anyother ways to get this proper service? without pulling wires ?

I am replacing a pentair with a pentair superflow.

Thanks in advance for any help
 
You will need to add another hot feed from the box to the motor. You need two legs of 110v. You will need to run another wire. Its fairly simple. Be sure its (the motor) properly grounded and the breaker is the proper size.

Changing the breaker wont just give you 220V......sorry!
 
Respectfully, I'm going to disagree with jhalpinjr. As long as you have room in the breaker box for a 230 volt breaker and there is nothing else using that circuit that needs 115 volts, you can switch the circuit to 230. A 230 volt circuit requires two hot wires and a ground, while a 115 volt circuit requires a hot, a neutral, and a ground. They are both three wire circuits, the neutral simply gets repurposed as a hot wire.
 
Jason- what I meant is you will have add another wire, if the existing wire to the neutral bus is to short to reach to other 110 bus in the box. I have seen this many times when it just simply wont reach to hook into the breaker. So in that case you would need to run anotherr wire- I should have been more clear.
Sorry for the confusion to the OP.

Just look to see where the neutral bus (should have all the white wires going to it) is in relation to breaker area that you are using. For example on mine the Nuetral bus is on the left and the electrican cut them so short that I dont think could move them over even 3" to reach the breaker.
 
Well,

I need to open my elect box and see if the existing neutral wire is long enough to reach a breaker..

Just to note I have 2 red and one green wire, why 2 red wires? So one of these is neutral or a ground?


I am going home to measure the voltage and check the existing breakers and sizes and if there is room in the breaker box for an additional breakers. So give me a little time to digest this info.

Thanks so much guys
 
The convention for 120 VAC is

Black: hot
White : Neutral
Green: ground

In your case you probably have one red on the breaker, the other red on the neutral bus, and the green on the ground.

To convert to 240VAC, you need a dipole breaker. Both reds to the breaker, (one on each leg) and leave the green on the ground bus. Like I said, nothing wrong with using a wire nut in the panel. If an inpsector tell you otherwise, he's making it up unless there is a local code, written down, that says you cant. Even if you couldnt, you can run the existing line to a j-box outside the panel, and make the splice there. But like I said, makeing in the panel, if you need to, is just fine.
 
How long has that installation been in place? While color conventions are nothing to rely on, ever, seeing two reds wired to a 110V circuit makes me wonder if it might have been born 220V and then converted to 110V. Code I believe says the red that is a neutral should have been painted or taped white at the end. Is there an unused 220V breaker in the box that might have been the original home for this circuit?

In any case, you should know that wire size is not going to be an issue unless the new pump is more than twice the size of the old one. The 220V hookup will use half the amps for the same wattage pump.
 
Durk said:
makes me wonder if it might have been born 220V and then converted to 110V. Code I believe says the red that is a neutral should have been painted or taped white at the end. Is there an unused 220V breaker in the box that might have been the original home for this circuit?

.
Click to expand...

That what I was thinking. And yes, if they used red for a neutral, it should have been taped white. Probably an older installation.
 

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Sorry for all the confusion....I appologize, you see I am a civil eng. not an electrician. Who know enough to get myself in trouble!! see below.

I checked my boxes, and I do have 220.
main elec panel has a 60 amp dual breaker with a white and green wire grounding.
pool elec. panel has 3 breakers, 40 amp for heater, dual 20 amp breaker for pump and 10 or 20 for the pool light. The dual 20 goes to the pump clearly and the 2 red wires come off of it So I have two red wires coming from the dual 20 amp breaker. Which is good :)

So I callled pentair and they stated to run the two red wires to the pump, one red to black, run the other red to white and connect the ground. Which I did. The pump is a pentair replacing a pentair and it had nice electrical clips which made for a good connection.

But when I turned it on it would only operate on ...one speed - slow. This pump is 2-speed so i sat there looking at it and prayed ....then I flipped the toggle switch on the pump and I got a spark and all my breakers blew!! I am scared to turn the elec. back on..

Should I turn the electric back on? Did I burn out the pump? did i burn the switch on the pump? I am going to reset the breakers put the pump back to initial speed (I think is slow). and call pentair.
 
If you post a picture of the wiring diagram on the pump and of how you wired the terminals and we should be able to help you.

I doubt you caused any real damage. The circuit breaker should have protected everything.
 
Well here are some pics.

I turned elec on and the breakers clicked off again...

I disconnected the red wires and they do measure 110v.

The pump came with a white and yellow (connected to motor) and a black (pigtailed w/plastic cap). I removed the black wire and connected the red to directly to the switch tab. My electrical tabs from the old motor -I left on and the fitment is good.[attachment=2:3jtstamr]IMG_5418.JPG[/attachment:3jtstamr][attachment=1:3jtstamr]IMG_5419.JPG[/attachment:3jtstamr][attachment=0:3jtstamr]IMG_5423.JPG[/attachment:3jtstamr]
 

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From what I can see you have one red wire from the conduit going to terminal 3 (along with the white wire), when it should be going to terminal 1 (the top of the three terminals on the pump in the photo). The other red wire from the conduit should go to the black wire, and connect through that to the middle terminal on the switch, which fits with your description.
 
So I should move a red from position 3 to 1. But it looks as if this is not connected to anything? The pentair guy stated to connect a red to the white and black. I thought putting the wire on position 3 ocnnected it to the white and I did a direct connection with the black.

I will switch the red wire on position 3 to position 1. Wish me luck I will be starring at it praying for a bit.
 
It worked!!! I moved one red supply wire to the #1 position on pump.

The pump is running. But it is slow but when I toggle the switch on the back of the pump it doenst change any speeds. Just on slow.

Did I blow the switch?

My wireing is such that
Switch #1 position with a white wire goes to pump #3 position
Switch #2 position with a black wire is connected to a Red supply wire
Swithc #3 position with a yellow wire goes to pump #2 position.

So in summary I have 2 red 110v supplie wires, 1 is connecting to the switch at #2 position (black) and the other is connecting to the pump at #1.

I cant tell you how much better I am right now I have been on edge since yesterday wondering is I had caused a bad thing!!

thanks for all youre help
 
Sounds like you're just getting low speed. Looking at the motor connections without the toggle switch, it shows that position 2 is high speed and position 3 is low speed. I would think that regardless wether you have a switch or not, position 2 is high speed and position 3 is low speed. You have one leg connected on position 3, so you have low speed. According to the diagram, position 2 is high speed, but you have no power to it.
 

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