Energized5KVBuzz
Member
- Location
- USA
First of let me say how much a big fan I am of this forum space. For years I have been a big fan of this forum. It is the most intellectual place I have ever found on electrical discussions.
Anyway as home improvement ideas always start, my wife decided our above ground pool was not warm enougth and she wants a pool heater...... Just how I wanted to start off my summer with another home improvement project.
So like all ideas I started plotting this out in my head and building a physical BOM off of a blue print. The pump of my above ground pool was running off a 110 15a GFCI cicrcuit I installed when the pool was not planning for the future I pulled in a single wire for the outlet and the pump has been running for years. When the electricity caps ran out for PA a year or 2 ago I finally realized how oh my goodness expensive it is to run a 1 HP pool pump 12 or 14 hours a day.
So when she brought up this pool heater idea I decided I could offset the monthly electric cost of running a electric heat pump if I replace that life draining I mean power draining pool pump witha newer energy efficient pump.
Of corse all these ideas need then my current setup.
I started up my ripping out the old conduit.
I ran 2 inch sch 40 PVC to a outdoor sub panel I installed near the back corner of the pool deck. The pvc is 18 inches hunder the earth. The sub panel is a breaker fed panel to satisfy the code requirement of needing a disconnect on a sub panel in a different building. From this sub panel I ran 2 inch sch 40 PVC to a outdoor PVC 8x8x4 conduit box mounted on my small patio where all the pool equipment is located. From that box I will break out in sealed liquid tight to the pool gear I know the new pool gear needs bonded to the pool.
Here is my question. I did not realize in the 2008 code update you could not run SE wire in a sealed conduit underground. Of corse I bought AL SE 2-2-2-4 wire to connect the sub panel to the house. I was under the impression that the wire conductors inside the SE wire used to not have any information written on its jacket. Thus you used to not be able to strip an SE wire and use it individually because the wire jackets had nothing written on them....
After inspecting the SE wire I bought I stripped 3 feet of the outer jacket and to my shock the internal wire conductor jackets all have XHHW-2 written on them along with the manufacture informwtion. They look just like a normal single conductor wire you can buy with all the info on the wire jacket. That brought a immediate smile to my face. I mean in the code book I can run separate XHHW-2 wires in a conduit underground. That meets code.
So back to my questions has anyone else noticed that the individual conductor wires of their SE wire now has jacket information on it? Also has anyone else stripped the outer jacket of a entire SE cable to get the 4 conductors separated to meet the code requirement for running wire in a conduit under the ground. I mean I hate to wast perfectly good wire. I know it's a little silly to strip the entire wire to the 4 conductors but the code says no SE wire in a conduit under thr ground. I figured as long as the jacket on those individual conductors has the wire stamp XHHW-2 on them I should be good to go if I strip the 4 individual conductos put of the SE wire jacket.
My second questioning. I could have sworn years ago that it was acceptable to run 100 amps over AL 2-2-2-4 wire for a sub panel. Even now the code table has AL 2 AWG with a maximum of 100 amps for a 90c 194f setup. But now if your running a sub panel in a separate building you can not consider it 90c / 194f you have to consider it 75c / 167f what drops the max amps allowed down to 90. Was it always like this? Like I said I could have sworn in the past it was perfectly acceptable to run 100 amps over AL 2-2-2-4.
I wanted to get everyone's take.
Thank you in advance
David
Anyway as home improvement ideas always start, my wife decided our above ground pool was not warm enougth and she wants a pool heater...... Just how I wanted to start off my summer with another home improvement project.
So like all ideas I started plotting this out in my head and building a physical BOM off of a blue print. The pump of my above ground pool was running off a 110 15a GFCI cicrcuit I installed when the pool was not planning for the future I pulled in a single wire for the outlet and the pump has been running for years. When the electricity caps ran out for PA a year or 2 ago I finally realized how oh my goodness expensive it is to run a 1 HP pool pump 12 or 14 hours a day.
So when she brought up this pool heater idea I decided I could offset the monthly electric cost of running a electric heat pump if I replace that life draining I mean power draining pool pump witha newer energy efficient pump.
Of corse all these ideas need then my current setup.
I started up my ripping out the old conduit.
I ran 2 inch sch 40 PVC to a outdoor sub panel I installed near the back corner of the pool deck. The pvc is 18 inches hunder the earth. The sub panel is a breaker fed panel to satisfy the code requirement of needing a disconnect on a sub panel in a different building. From this sub panel I ran 2 inch sch 40 PVC to a outdoor PVC 8x8x4 conduit box mounted on my small patio where all the pool equipment is located. From that box I will break out in sealed liquid tight to the pool gear I know the new pool gear needs bonded to the pool.
Here is my question. I did not realize in the 2008 code update you could not run SE wire in a sealed conduit underground. Of corse I bought AL SE 2-2-2-4 wire to connect the sub panel to the house. I was under the impression that the wire conductors inside the SE wire used to not have any information written on its jacket. Thus you used to not be able to strip an SE wire and use it individually because the wire jackets had nothing written on them....
After inspecting the SE wire I bought I stripped 3 feet of the outer jacket and to my shock the internal wire conductor jackets all have XHHW-2 written on them along with the manufacture informwtion. They look just like a normal single conductor wire you can buy with all the info on the wire jacket. That brought a immediate smile to my face. I mean in the code book I can run separate XHHW-2 wires in a conduit underground. That meets code.
So back to my questions has anyone else noticed that the individual conductor wires of their SE wire now has jacket information on it? Also has anyone else stripped the outer jacket of a entire SE cable to get the 4 conductors separated to meet the code requirement for running wire in a conduit under the ground. I mean I hate to wast perfectly good wire. I know it's a little silly to strip the entire wire to the 4 conductors but the code says no SE wire in a conduit under thr ground. I figured as long as the jacket on those individual conductors has the wire stamp XHHW-2 on them I should be good to go if I strip the 4 individual conductos put of the SE wire jacket.
My second questioning. I could have sworn years ago that it was acceptable to run 100 amps over AL 2-2-2-4 wire for a sub panel. Even now the code table has AL 2 AWG with a maximum of 100 amps for a 90c 194f setup. But now if your running a sub panel in a separate building you can not consider it 90c / 194f you have to consider it 75c / 167f what drops the max amps allowed down to 90. Was it always like this? Like I said I could have sworn in the past it was perfectly acceptable to run 100 amps over AL 2-2-2-4.
I wanted to get everyone's take.
Thank you in advance
David
