"Thanks for the tip Larry, I'll get a chepo disco. It's not like it's gonna be used often."
In the past 5 years I've installed over 150 (2HP) grinder pumps for a city wide, pumped sewage system. All of the pumps required a 30A 240V circuit to power the factory assembled tank collector/pumping system. Basically the system is a buried 150 gallon fiberglass tank with a 2 hp grinder pump sitting in the bottom. The pump is controlled by a float operated, magnetic starter with pump failure alarm all contained in a factory supplied control panel that's mounted under the tank lid.
The way I installed the system was to run a 30A 240V feeder from the house panel (usually requiring work on these 50-75 year old homes) to a outside 2 pole disconnect. A 5 conductor service cord (supplied with the system) was routed (underground in conduit) from my disconnect to the pump control disconnect (mounted in control panel). The cord supplied 240V power, neutral conductor and a grounding conductor to the control and the other wire in the cord powered from the control back to a 120V alarm system that was mounted beside my disconnect.
On some of the systems, the tank/pump had to be located some distance from the home. On those, I installed a 30A 240V (underground) 4 wire feed from the house panel to a "structure" (that I built) that supported the disconnect and alarm box. This "structure" was located beside the tank/pump.
In the beginning, I was using a "cheap" 2 pole A/C disconnect. As the work progressed, I realized that the disconnects were going to see a lot of use because of the nature of the installation. These systems require a lot of maintenence (which the city is still learning the hard way). So I later began to install a better grade of disconnect because the plug-in types were failing in short order.
Long story short....That disconnect will be used regularly.
Hope this helps
steve
