Whole pool without power

[robbym70]

I can't speak for all areas of the country, but in my area, following your instructions can be difficult: it's hard enough to get an electrician who is licensed, and WILLING to do pool work. Experience seems to teach many electricians that pool work can be a PITA, is not particularly profitable, and should be avoided.

I don't really KNOW why this is, but I can guess at some possible reasons:

1. Bonding is NOT the same as grounding, but most electrician (as opposed to electrical engineers) don't really grasp the concept of a Faraday cage. As far as I know, pools are the only enforcement area that requires them to understand and apply bonding.

2. Many 'outdoor' or 'all-weather' electrical components, are neither all-weather nor outdoor, in any durable sense. Usually, such components (such as an outdoor receptacle cover) are installed in locations so rarely used that no one notices their failure. But on pools, this is not the case. I've seen electricians baffled, more than once, when "outdoor" components (that were NEVER engineered to meet their labeling) failed in pool environments.

3. Electronically controlled electrical circuits, devices and motors seem to be common in two environments: industrial use, and pools. Industrial electricians are a different breed, and would laugh hysterically at the 'mickey-mouse' design of pool electronic control systems. Residential electricians don't know to laugh, but instead learn the hard way that such systems are a constant PITA and warranty hassle.

4. The majority of residential electricians I've encountered are really 'wire-pullers' and 'connection-makers' and have been baffled by a request to use a DPDT timer to control a dual winding pump (ie, 2 speed pump), much less anything more complex. Industrial electricians have no problems there, nor do some commercial electricians, BUT they are not usually called to pool sites.

5. The most recent NEC in my possession is ~20 years old. I'm aware of some updates, but have not gone through a complete code. However, there *were* numerous aspects of NEC permitted methods that I've seen consistently fail in pool or other hard use wet environments. Two that I recall immediately are:
=> conduit grounds (I *HATE* those things -- was nearly killed by one!)
=> bonding via the rebar mat rather than a continuous bare wire loop. (This is incredibly dumb: essentially, it delegates to the concrete guys the responsibility of establishing the electrical integrity of the mat in a way that guarantees it will survive despite stupid concrete finishing practices, lazy wire-tying, and corrosion. Again, I KNOW that it often does not! The repeated stories in the pool trade press of corrosion cause by measurable transient currents across pool components establishes that it does not -- a full #6 or #8 bare wire loop, individually tied to each metal element with a bare wire jumper, having a milli-ohm point-to-loop resistance would make such transients, at the levels seen, impossible.)

6. At least in commercial environments, bonding vs. grounding can create some inadvertent hazards. When I last encountered pool electrical inspection (10+ years ago), it was apparently still common to discourage direct grounding of the bond loops (the Faraday cage). This tends to happen incidentally, when residential local panels are bonded, but I've never seen a commercial supply in a pump room bonded. Coupled with allowed conduit grounds on pumps, this tends to result in pumps that are BONDED, but not grounded.

For someone switching on a commercial pump, while having a hand on the pump, this creates a very real potential hazard. You might think that's unlikely, but trust me, many pumps and panels are so badly placed that it's an everyday occurrence. I've personally only received very mild shocks (tingles) this way, but that's still a VERY bad thing.

7. EVERYBODY -- electricians, code authorities, maintenance staff, pool guys -- seem to forget that the only class of electrical power users who are as wet and exposed as pool power users are homeowners coming out of the bathroom. But even they aren't nearly as wet and exposed as pool staff:
=> a sopping wet bathroom floor usually means somebody is about to get yelled at, but a sopping pump room floor is almost the rule.
=> wet, dripping homeowners do not stand in a puddle, repeatedly switching 240V circuits on and off - but pool staff and pool owners do.
=> etc.

8. GFCI receptacles and circuit breakers do not always fail safe; I have seem them fail UN-safe more than once, in a pool environment.


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Writing this, has made me recall more of the shocks I've gotten over the years than I've ever done before, at one time. I'm surprised I'm still alive!

Good points all. You know i forget there are other parts of the country that still don't license electricians. I knew that but much of my focus is out of the U.S. these days.

Please send me an email at rmachado@nfpa.org. I'd like to take this conversation off line and I don't see a PM function anywhere.

Thanks,
Robert.

[BigDave]

If you do take this conversation offline, would you please copy me on some of the conversation? (Ben has my addy) I have Engineering and industrial experience and am very interested in this conversation.