Number of Conductors to Detached Building. Are Separate Neutrals / Grounds required?

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Ravenvalor

Ravenvalor

Senior Member
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Piedmont region of NC
Hello,

I have a customer with a detached pool house that is currently being fed by utility service. The utility company has agreed to disconnect their underground lateral lines and let me splice into them below ground at both ends in order to use their lines for my new pool house feeder. This will mean that I only have to trench from the home to the utility transformer pad instead of trenching all the way to the pool house through dense woods with large deeply rooted trees. The only problem is that it is only three conductor. I was wondering if there is something written in the code that will let me use only three conductors for a 120/240-volt single phase feeder to a residential pool house.

Thanks,
 
I think you are going to need to meet 680.25.
Would it be possible to feed the pool house with a 120v (only)circuit so your 3rd conductor could be an insulated requirement ground ?
 
I'm having a really hard time picturing this. The conductors feeding the pool shed are currently service conductors, but are going to wind up a feeder? What's already feeding the house? This makes no sense...?
 
George Stolz said:
I'm having a really hard time picturing this. The conductors feeding the pool shed are currently service conductors, but are going to wind up a feeder? What's already feeding the house? This makes no sense...?
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My guess is that the pool house had an existing utility-owned service connection which just happened to pass by the main house, and now the OP is trying to wire both buildings to a single service which will terminate at the main house.
Was the pool house a separate rental at one time?
 
augie47 said:
I think you are going to need to meet 680.25.
Would it be possible to feed the pool house with a 120v (only)circuit so your 3rd conductor could be an insulated requirement ground ?
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I don't do swimming pools so I never ran across this requirement before. Doesn't this basically rule out UG cable entirely?
 
I may be overlooking something, but IF the conductors are in conduit and IF the equipment grounding conductor is insulated, it appears to me that he could meet 680.25,
 
My apologies for not clarifying things for you.
The customer has a several acre farm. The customer added a swimming pool with a pool house years after building his home. The pool and pool house are far enough away from the home that he decided to just pay for a new service rather than pay someone to feed the pool house from the home. 25 - years later and the customer is tired of paying for the service and so he wants me to feed the pool house from the home. It just so happens that the utility transformer feeding the pool house is near the home so I have the opportunity to use those abandoned utility cables that are feeding the pool house as my new pool house feeder.
So what we have is a customer who has a home with a service and then he has a pool house with a service. Both services are being fed with direct burial wire that is single phase 240/120-volt 3 wire. The utility company has agreed to disconnect both ends of the pool house lateral line and let me splice onto it in the ground. The conductor size is approximately a #1 aluminum so if everything in the pool house runs on 120-volt I can feed the building with 120-volt. This may meet one requirement but it won't meet the other requirement about being in conduit. I would have never thought to look at 680.25. Thanks augie47.
PS. The exception to 680.25(A) comes close to allowing me to use the cable but the underground cable that is being fed to this building is not within an outer sheath.
 
It does not appear that the existing conductors where you are planning to splice are on the supply side of a panelboard or on the load side of any service equipment. If so then 680.25 does not apply.
 
Michael15956 said:
It does not appear that the existing conductors where you are planning to splice are on the supply side of a panelboard or on the load side of any service equipment. If so then 680.25 does not apply.
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On the contrary, I see that the existing conductors will be repurposed as feeders somewhere between the panelboard that is supplying the pool equipment (which is either the main panelboard at that site or a subpanel) and the service point. That makes 680.25 applicable.

If there were no panel at the pool house at all, just a single branch circuit that fed all pool and incidental equipment, then your argument might be appropriate. But that leaves the question of whether the existing conductors are allowed to be used as branch wiring to pool equipment. :)
 
augie47 said:
I may be overlooking something, but IF the conductors are in conduit and IF the equipment grounding conductor is insulated, it appears to me that he could meet 680.25,
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Sorry Gus I had assumed no conduit and it is rarely used here except for under driveways and the like
 
jaylectricity said:
Service to disconnect (not OCP); two feeders, one to house, one to pool; OCP and ground rods at each location.
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As has been mentioned elsewhere in the Forum, if the first disconnect does not have any OCP, it is not a service disconnect. You have two service laterals from the same service running to two different buildings which are related to the same residential occupancy. That is OK as long as the panels at both locations are SUSE and you provide a GES bond at each one. Each panel main will be a service disconnect for its building.
Having all of the details really helps.

PS: Now is grouping of disconnects an issue? Probably not.....
 
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Why not change the meter enclosure at the house with one that you can double lug. From that enclosure re-install the service entrance to the house. Bring the service entrance from the pool house to the new meter enclosure at the house.

Eliminate the existing meter enclosure at the pool house. You only have one meter for both buildings and it meets:

230.40 Number of Service-Entrance Conductor Sets.
Each service drop or lateral shall supply only one set of service-entrance conductors.
Exception No. 3: A single-family dwelling unit and a separate structure shall be permitted to have one set of service-entrance conductors run to each from a single service drop or lateral.
 
In our area you'd be required to install overcurrent protection within 6' of the meter. Even if you double lugged the load side of the meterbase you'd have to immediately hit a breaker or a fused disconnect which would turn your existing underground to the Poolhouse into a feeder, which would require you to run a seperate neutral and ground, and you'd be 1 wire short in your scenario. If you double lugged the line side of the meterbase, you'd have to turn around and install a meter somewhere to monitor the usage at the poolhouse and you'd be right back where you are now paying the fee for 2 meters so that dont work either. In my opinion the 120v feeder to the pool house suggestion gets pretty close but not having 240 available down there may be an inconvienience also.
Sometimes people think more about whether they can and dont stop to think about whether they should. :)
Although the extra meter may be somewhat expensive to have, it may be best to leave things as they are.

Just my 2 cents.

JAP.
 
jap said:
In our area you'd be required to install overcurrent protection within 6' of the meter. Even if you double lugged the load side of the meterbase you'd have to immediately hit a breaker or a fused disconnect which would turn your existing underground to the Poolhouse into a feeder,
JAP.
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Just for clarification are you saying you would be required to provide over current protection within six ft of the meter enclosure even if the service entrance dose not enter the dwelling ?

If so would you be made to bring the disconnect for the dwelling outside?
 
david said:
Just for clarification are you saying you would be required to provide over current protection within six ft of the meter enclosure even if the service entrance dose not enter the dwelling ?

Within 6' from the loadside of the meter. Yes.

If so would you be made to bring the disconnect for the dwelling outside?
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Not as long as the disconnect for the dwelling was within 6' of the loadside of the meter already.
 
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