Pump stopped working (getting 120V instead of 240V?)

[FS2019]

Yes, Jcciaschi, I understand you are saying and will do so.

The black wire has the print: 14 AWG Type THHN or THWN gasoline and oil resistant ii or awm 600 volts AIW-CORP. I can just buy 14 gauge THHN wires, right? Should I get 3 separate wires, or try to get a cable that contains 3 wires?

 

[Brett S]

Individual wires are fine. I think Home Depot has a spool that has three individual 14 gauge 3 conductor wires together, but you’ll probably pay a little more for that than you would for just individual wires.

 

[kadavis]

First I make sure the conduit underground isn't compromised, it is very common in Tucson because of certain years the electricians used intermediate metal conduit unwrapped. This and the highly alkaline soil would lead to the conduit corroding to the point of complete breakage. If there is metal conduit coming from your panel box to pool equipment you might dig around the ground where it enters the ground to see if there is any corrosion

 

[FS2019]

didn't get a chance to replace the wire, plan to do it on Saturday when a friend comes over to help. but then I saw kadavis' suggestion, and dug a little bit this morning. you can see in the attached picture that two conduits are rusted below the surface: the right one comes from the breaker box and goes up into the junction box, the left rusted conduit goes from junction box to the timer switch. They don't look good - Any suggestion? Thanks!

 

[wireform]

I would discontinue using that conduit and go for the pvc alternative and be done with it. I don't think it makes sense working with this and investing your time with rusted conduit. Your wiring problem is the tell tale all on what you have happening.

 

[Jcciaschi]

Unfortunately I have to agree with wireform. If your conduit is rusted that bad, chances are good it is rusted through and caused the wire inside the pipe to also corrode. Putting new wire in will solve your problem until the rust eats through them which could be 1 year or it could be 5 years. As stated, PVC pipe for buried wire (usually gray) is the way to go. Good luck

 

[FS2019]

After digging a little bit more, I was convinced that the old conduit was done. Some parts of it just collapsed. Over the last couple of days, with big help from a friend and my 12-year old daughter, we've installed new conduit and put new wires in, and the pump is running again! We used IMC conduit wrapped with anti-corrosion tape, because it only needs to be buried at 6", rather than PVC conduit, which I read from online that it has to be buried at 18". Tons of thanks to everyone in this thread! Without your help we wouldn't be able to pull it off.

One last question: There's another conduit, which goes from the breaker box to the junction box, and it has the same age and looks like in the similarly bad shape as the one I just replaced. However there's one challenge to replacing it: the conduit seems going under a 21-feet wide concrete and there's no way to get around of it in my backyard (the concrete extends to the pool deck). Any suggestion how to put in new conduit?

Thanks!

 

[red-beard]

How far is the conduit run? I know it was underground before, but you could run flexible non-conducting above ground with Sealtite connectors at each end. This is actually how my pool pumps are connected to my control panel.

 

[FS2019]

The overall length is about 100 ft, and the part under concrete is about 20ft or so.

 

[red-beard]

You can get 100 foot reels of the conduit. Is there a problem with running the conduit on the concrete? Trying to run a new conduit UNDER concrete is a BEAR. It can be done, but I wouldn't want to do it.

 

[FS2019]

OK, I'll look into running it either on the concrete or maybe go up on the outside of the wall. Thanks!