220v GFI breaker

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Rewire

Senior Member
Pool guys installed a 220V 20 A pump and put it on a two pole Gfi breaker they landed the pigtail to the neutral bus and ran a nuetral from the breaker and tied it into several other neutrals.When they opened the pool this season and turned things on it tripped the GFI breaker.The owners called us and i sent a guy out and he found the neutrals tied together and unhooked them and the breaker holds but he called and said he can find no where on the pool pump for a neutral.I am going out to look monday and need advice,is something missing or is the neutral redundant.
 

stickboy1375

Senior Member
Location
Litchfield, CT
RewirePool said:
guys installed a 220V 20 A pump and put it on a two pole Gfi breaker they landed the pigtail to the neutral bus and ran a nuetral from the breaker and tied it into several other neutrals.

They didnt know what they were doing, another what "Grinds my gears" moment.

RewirePool said:
When they opened the pool this season and turned things on it tripped the GFI breaker.

Thats hard to believe... :roll:



RewirePool said:
The owners called us and i sent a guy out and he found the neutrals tied together and unhooked them and the breaker holds but he called and said he can find no where on the pool pump for a neutral.

Pump does not need/require a neutral.
 

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
Rewire said:
I am going out to look monday and need advice,is something missing or is the neutral redundant.
Save yourself a trip. The load neutral terminal should not have anything landed on it if the load has no neutral. The pigtal still need to land on the panel's neutral bus.
 

Rewire

Senior Member
stickboy1375 said:
They didnt know what they were doing, another what "Grinds my gears" moment.



Thats hard to believe... :roll:





Pump does not need/require a neutral.
So far you have told me what I already know ,what I need is what I don't such as,is this the right breaker or did they just put something in they thought would work.Is there a special 220V GFI breaker for pool pumps?
 

stickboy1375

Senior Member
Location
Litchfield, CT
Rewire said:
So far you have told me what I already know ,what I need is what I don't such as,is this the right breaker or did they just put something in they thought would work.Is there a special 220V GFI breaker for pool pumps?

:confused: What would make it special?
 

Rewire

Senior Member
LarryFine said:
Save yourself a trip. The load neutral terminal should not have anything landed on it if the load has no neutral. The pigtal still need to land on the panel's neutral bus.
Thanks Larry, the tech had everything running but was confussed as to why the pool guys ran the neutral.I hate trying to figure things out over the phone and was sure someone on the form had been there and done that.
 

Dennis Alwon

Moderator
Staff member
Location
Chapel Hill, NC
Occupation
Retired Electrical Contractor
Rewire said:
So far you have told me what I already know ,what I need is what I don't such as,is this the right breaker or did they just put something in they thought would work.Is there a special 220V GFI breaker for pool pumps?

It is the right breaker but it probably doesn't need gfci protection unless it is under the 2008 code. No neutral to the load as Larry said but the pigtail must go to the neutral bar in the panel.
 

cloudymacleod

Senior Member
wouldn't the branch circuit feeding the pump only be a 2 wire, so wouldn't both the black and white wire land on the 2-pole gfci breaker and the pigtail be landed on the neutral bar?
 

stickboy1375

Senior Member
Location
Litchfield, CT
cloudymacleod said:
wouldn't the branch circuit feeding the pump only be a 2 wire, so wouldn't both the black and white wire land on the 2-pole gfci breaker and the pigtail be landed on the neutral bar?


If your an electrician then yes, but if your a pool guy, anything goes. :wink:
 

LarryFine

Master Electrician Electric Contractor Richmond VA
Location
Henrico County, VA
Occupation
Electrical Contractor
cloudymacleod said:
wouldn't the branch circuit feeding the pump only be a 2 wire, so wouldn't both the black and white wire land on the 2-pole gfci breaker and the pigtail be landed on the neutral bar?
Yes, a white that has been re-colored if in cable, but you still need the insulated EGC that precludes standard NM cable types. There are most likely no hot white wires.

Most 2-pole GFCI breakers have load neutral terminals, but should be left alone if the load has no neutral. That re-colored white should land on the second hot load terminal.
 

coulter

Senior Member
stickboy1375 said:
:confused: What would make it special?
I bought a QO 240V, 2p, 20A, equipment GFI - 30ma trip, for the heat trace on the waterline out to my well. Considering the price tag, that CB was pretty special.

carl
 
you ain't just whisperin dixie...

you ain't just whisperin dixie...

I bought a QO 240V, 2p, 20A, equipment GFI - 30ma trip, for the heat trace on the waterline out to my well. Considering the price tag, that CB was pretty special.

In fact the $95 price tag for a 2p, 20A GFI needed for a Jacuzzi steam and jet shower unit is the reason I joined this forum. I was hoping that somebody here would know how to beat the grim reaper on this price.

a 2p, 50amp CFI in a spa sub-panel costs about 2/3 of the price of the 2p 20A. Now I think they sell a lot of the 50s for hot tubs and apparently there is less of a market for the 20s because e-bay is full of the 50s, but 20s are rare and get bid up not so far from the $95 price I was quoted by my distributor.

So, I can buy the 50amp GFI subpanel to install at the shower unit and feed it with a standard 20amp two pole from the panel and still have 20 bucks less invested although this would be slightly unconventional I don't think it would be functionally over the line.

But this gets me back to the question that started the post. I don't understand why there is a neutral on a 2p GFI, because my understanding of what it will be looking for is a difference between amperage in the two hot 220 feeds. Maybe as someone suggested earlier the actual function of sensing is still running as a 120v function so the neutral is necessary, but I can't imagine it would require a neutral capable of carrying the same load as the 220 feeds.

This is not maybe such a big issue on 20amp installs but, even there, 12-3 costs almost twice as much as 12-2 and if this is a small load that could safely be handled with a dedicated say 14 gauge neutral return it would be cheaper to run a 12-2 and 14-2 or in the case of the spa an 6-2 and a 14-2.

Another way around this seems to be to get a GFI that fits the panel. Then your neutral pigtail from the breaker can just go straight to the neutral bus. But it is handy to have the GFI loacted closer to the served appliance given that they trip easily and you want to be able to quickly check if you have cured the fault without running to the main panel all the time.

I have no idea what code says about the size of the covered neutral in such a case, and as you may be able to guess by my moniker, I'm more concerned about the legitimate operational requirements than what the rulebook says. That is not to say that I find them often divergent, but often enough, especially in the as-applied by the 'official' on the site. For instance those inspectors who refuse to accept copper service conductors sized based on copper's resistivity rather than aluminum because they are not used to being confronted with copper in these applications (and these days it is even less likely, think gas is expensive, buy some copper. If I had some spare change I'd be opening a copper mine. Too bad the environmentalists killed the copper mine outside yellowstone, but I digress).

Anyway, final disclaimer is that this more or less parallels a post I attempted to make as a new topic this morning but because I am a new member, my ability to create a new topic appears to be embargoed for the time being. So if someone gets done reviewing it and lets it post, you will find it redundant, although not the second one of my posts seeking a supplier of indexpensive small 120v dusk to dawn photocells.

'Harry'
 
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