220V Gfci Pump Wiring Question

[Todd C.]

Hello All,

I am in the process of adding a Hayward booster pump to my existing system. I currently have a hardwired 220v 15 amp GFI breaker that feeds the main pump and salt generator (total of 9 amps draw). The new pump and the existing units would be a 15amp draw. I was plannning on installing a 20amp GFI 220v breaker but they are about $150 in my area. I do have a 50amp GFI spa panel with 2 slots I could use instead. My question is can I run a standard double pole 20amp breaker off of the 50amp GFI to power the 2 pumps and still be protected and within code compliance? It seems to me that I would be ok.

Any thoughts are appreciated.

Todd C.

[AFiremanFirst]

NO!!!!!! You can't just replace a 15 amp with a 20 amp. Well you could. But setting your house on fire becomes a serious risk!!! I'm a TX certified full time firefighter. It has a 15 amp because of the wire from the breaker to the gfci wouldn't handle 20amps not because your pool builder only needed 15 amps! 20 amps requires a larger gauge wire than 15, someone will correct me but I believe 15 amp is 14 gauge and 20 amp is 12 gauge, this is not a small difference!!!

With that said. If you have 2 open slots in your breaker panel, and you can run power off that breaker to the new booster pump, then just add a 15 amp gfci for that 1 motor. I'm not certain I completely understand your scenario however. Typically... You have breakers in the house running out to the equipment. Or a sub panel near the equipment. Then wire running to a switch. This switch is usually due to code mandating the ability to kill power to the system out near the equipment. ie a repair, and no one is home to allow a repair guy in to kill the breaker. Commonly a GFCI is also required down from the switch for safety (most commonly seen when the main breaker is inside, rarely seen with an outdoor sub panel). There should also be a 110 GFCI for lights!

I hope this clears some things up for you, any questions don't hesitate to ask. I am not an electrical guy, but you should find one around here somewhere.

[Todd C.]

I do understand the wire gauge issue and what size is needed to run the different circuits. My question is can you have a 20 amp double pole breaker as a branch circuit off of a subpanel with a 50 amp GFCI main. The 20 amp circuit will be run with 12/3 and I am thinking the pump is protected, ground fault wise, by the GFCI in the subpanel.

[AFiremanFirst]

Yes of course. 50 amp means the breaker will trip at 50amps (hypothetically) putting a 20 amp gfci after a 50 amp will simply trip the gfci at 20 amps. Should you have a short between the 20 amp and the 50 amp breaker then the breaker will still do it's job and trip. Keep in mind that is the real point in breakers. Assuming you think before plugging in 50 amps to a 15 amp breaker, in that scenario it's called an idiot switch.

[Daniel Erlandson]

ok...so I am curious about this. I was thinking of running some low voltage outdoor lights near my spa and don't have an outlet nearby, but was thinking I could run an outlet off of the 50 amp 240 v GFCI panel mounted outside by the spa. I can do this by tapping into just the black,white and ground wires, no?

[AFiremanFirst]

NO!!! Understand that 220, is 2 110 lines with a ground. In other words. A 220 has a breaker, that if you opened the door of your breaker panel, you'd see some "single" breakers, and some "double" (it looks like 2 singles with a slide over the breaker switches). The "singles" are 110 breakers, and the "doubles are 220. If you removed the cover over your breakers (and I don't recommend this unless you know what you are doing) what you would see is that the "double" breakers cross both bars inside and get power from both of the big lines coming in, the singles only pull off "1 side". Somewhere inside you'd see a bus bar with a lot of green wires attached, 1 end goes to the ground coming in, all the small green wires are grounds. So for 220 you run a double breaker (no, not the same as 2 singles, they are actually bought as 1 item and are inseperable), then 1 wire out of each terminal on each breaker (there is only 1 terminal per breaker) then a green ground wire out to where it is needed, ie your pump, booster, hot tub, etc. In other words, if you use the black, the white and the green you'll be pulling 220, and you likely only need 110 for low voltage. Your black is a leg of 110, and so is your white. They could both be black, or white or pink if you so chose. Now. I don't recommend you tackle this. However. Suppose you had 220 running to nowhere. You could theoretically interrupt 1 leg and use a ground, and aquire an outlet. This is done by cutting 1 leg, one end would go into the outlet, and the other end comes out of the outlet, and then attach your green for a ground to the grounding screw (green).

Disclaimers: I am not an electrician. I strongly urge you to use an electrician. I caution you that electricity is deadly, and if done improperly can burn your house down!!!

[Bugman1400]

Just remember that a 50Amp breaker cannot protect 20Amp wire. The breaker protects the wire that is downstream of it. So, if you put a 20Amp breaker downstream of the 50Amp breaker then you will need to run 50Amp wire to the 20Amp breaker. You then can run 20Amp wire downstream of that to your booster motor. I'm not sure that s GFI is required by NEC code to run your pool equipment. I think it is for hottubs because you are sitting in the same box of water that contains the filter, motor, lights, control panel, etc. My pool AquaLinkRS control panel has no GFI on it at all.

2008 NEC code, Article 680 (Swimming Pools), Section 680.21 (Motors), Paragraph A1, indicates that a wire conductor smaller than 12 AWG cannot be used for motors. It also, indicates that if the motor is a permanent connection type (not a plug-in recepticle) and not less than 6ft from the pool then it does not have to be GFCI.