Hey there. I guess it’s time to talk about the electrical side of this pool.
Once again, YOU MUST FOLLOW NATIONAL AND LOCAL CODES!!!!!
The part I’ll concentrate on is bonding the pool. If you followed my advice you got steel walls for the pool. As we all know, metal (and water) are excellent conductors for electricity. As such, we need to prevent someone from being electrocuted while using the pool. The way to ‘bond’ a pool is by having a heavy duty copper wire run to a grounding post from all the metal within a certain distance from the pool, this includes, but is not limited to – the panels themselves, any ladders or handrails, the lights and the metal reinforcement in the deck.
The way it’s done here is to surround the entire pool with continuous 16 gauge copper wire (some localities may require it to be coated) attached to the pool walls in 5 – 10 places, run through the outer bonding lug on the lights with ‘loops’ where any ladder/ handrail anchors will be and a couple of loops to bond the deck reinforcement steel.
The easiest way to insure that this is done properly is to hire an electrician (who is familiar with local pool regulations) to do this, but it’s pretty darn simple to do – (anyone who wants the info can simply ask). However, you’ll probably have an electrician out to provide power to the equipment pad, so work with him (sometimes we’ll just have the electrician leave us the materials and install them ourselves, when he comes out to actually run the power to the pad, he’ll ‘sign off’ on what we’ve done so the inspector is happy).
In Ct, the light niche MUST be bonded to the pool from the outside and back to the power source from the inside (it doesn’t matter that they share THE SAME LUG on the niche : hammer : ) and the inside has to have epoxy on it. Also the bonding wire on the inside MUST be coated!
Some electricians will try to downsize the conduit (1†is good) and add too many bends or elbows – this makes ‘pulling’ the light cord through the conduit a real PITA!!! Unless you know how to properly wire junction boxes and add a breaker, it’s best to let the pros do this! Electricity can be very dangerous!!! (DUH ! ïŠ )
As long as you are going to be running some conduit – try to think ahead as to whether you are going to want lights around the deck, outlets near the deck and always have them run a 110 v waterproof outlet at the pad – it’s cheaper now than it will be in the future once the hole is closed up. Another thing to think about is, if you go with a shallow pool, installing a couple extra anchor cups, mid pool, so you can install a volleyball net
– they will need to be bonded with the other cups.
Again, I’ve probably neglected some stuff in this post (hint – it sure would be nice to hear from folks on the latest installments – I’ve done this stuff hundreds of times, I’d like to be sure I’m being clear as to what I’m trying to say)
I think part 8 will cover shaping the floor – so be sure to stay tuned
Once again, YOU MUST FOLLOW NATIONAL AND LOCAL CODES!!!!!
The part I’ll concentrate on is bonding the pool. If you followed my advice you got steel walls for the pool. As we all know, metal (and water) are excellent conductors for electricity. As such, we need to prevent someone from being electrocuted while using the pool. The way to ‘bond’ a pool is by having a heavy duty copper wire run to a grounding post from all the metal within a certain distance from the pool, this includes, but is not limited to – the panels themselves, any ladders or handrails, the lights and the metal reinforcement in the deck.
The way it’s done here is to surround the entire pool with continuous 16 gauge copper wire (some localities may require it to be coated) attached to the pool walls in 5 – 10 places, run through the outer bonding lug on the lights with ‘loops’ where any ladder/ handrail anchors will be and a couple of loops to bond the deck reinforcement steel.
The easiest way to insure that this is done properly is to hire an electrician (who is familiar with local pool regulations) to do this, but it’s pretty darn simple to do – (anyone who wants the info can simply ask). However, you’ll probably have an electrician out to provide power to the equipment pad, so work with him (sometimes we’ll just have the electrician leave us the materials and install them ourselves, when he comes out to actually run the power to the pad, he’ll ‘sign off’ on what we’ve done so the inspector is happy).
In Ct, the light niche MUST be bonded to the pool from the outside and back to the power source from the inside (it doesn’t matter that they share THE SAME LUG on the niche : hammer : ) and the inside has to have epoxy on it. Also the bonding wire on the inside MUST be coated!
Some electricians will try to downsize the conduit (1†is good) and add too many bends or elbows – this makes ‘pulling’ the light cord through the conduit a real PITA!!! Unless you know how to properly wire junction boxes and add a breaker, it’s best to let the pros do this! Electricity can be very dangerous!!! (DUH ! ïŠ )
As long as you are going to be running some conduit – try to think ahead as to whether you are going to want lights around the deck, outlets near the deck and always have them run a 110 v waterproof outlet at the pad – it’s cheaper now than it will be in the future once the hole is closed up. Another thing to think about is, if you go with a shallow pool, installing a couple extra anchor cups, mid pool, so you can install a volleyball net
– they will need to be bonded with the other cups.Again, I’ve probably neglected some stuff in this post (hint – it sure would be nice to hear from folks on the latest installments – I’ve done this stuff hundreds of times, I’d like to be sure I’m being clear as to what I’m trying to say)
I think part 8 will cover shaping the floor – so be sure to stay tuned
Again, as I put in caps up top - FOLLOW THE LOCAL CODES!!
