Electrical Questions for Small Pool
We want to install a small, 1500 gallon pool. It’s called an iPool, and is listed on Amazon.
The heater for the pool is rated for either 30 or 40 amps at 220 volts. (There’s some discrepency on the actual amount. Both values are given at different places. I’ll be contacting the seller before I buy it so I’ll know by then.)
My electrical panel is a Cuttler Hammer CB202040. I looked that up and found that it’s a 200 amp panel with 20 cutouts and rated for 40 circuits. That panel feeds two other panels, in addition to other circuits. One is a 100 amp panel in the garage. The previous owner of the house had electric heaters in there, but they are gone, so the load out there is just lights, garage door openers, and a few power tools. The other panel is a generator transfer panel rated at 60 amps. It has two 20 amp breakers and four 15 amp breakers, one of which is a spare. Hopefully my “drawing” shows that I have eight doubled up circuits, the four 30 amp circuits for the Water Heater and Dryer, a pair of 20 amp circuits, and a pair of 15 amp circuits.
In the main panel I have the following:
40 amp -| |——— 30 amp
| | |——- 30 amp
|- Range Water Heater -| |- Dryer
| | |——- 30 amp
40 amp -| |——— 30 amp
40 amp -| |——— 100 amp
| |
|- Oven Garage -|
| |
40 amp -| |——— 100 amp
50 amp -| |——— 60 amp
| Generator |
|- A/C Panel -|
| |
50 amp -| |——— 60 amp
20 amp -| |——— 20 amp
20 amp -|
20 amp -| |——— 20 amp
15 amp -| |——— 20 amp
15 amp -|
20 amp -| |——— 15 amp
The space is in a room in our finished basement. We plan to keep a cover on the pool except for the time we are acually swimming in it, which maybe be up to an hour a day. We also plan to put a dehumidifier in the room. There is floor drain in the room for the dehumidifier condensate. The new electical loads will be a pump, a pool heater, the dehumidifier, and one of those oil filled radiators (120 volt).
The bottom two 15 amp circuits in the panel (one on the left and one on the right) are very lightly loaded. The one on the right has a single light fixture, and the one on the left has three light fixtures. The 20 amp circuit above the bottom one on the right has outlets that will be removed, since they are next to where the pool will go. The bottom 20 amp circuit on the left side has just an attic fan on it.
Questions:
1. Can I rewire so that the single light fixture fed by the bottom right 15 amp circuit is feed by the bottom 15 amp circuit on the left side, since it has just three light fixtures on it?
2. Can I put a pair of 30 or 40 amp breakers in the bottom two spaces on the right side of the panel for the pool heater?
3. Can I run the pool pump, dehumidifier, and oil filled radiator along with the attic fan on the 20 amp circuit on the bottom left side of the panel?
Thanks for any advice.
Replies
1) Unless there's something you haven't told us there should be no problem with the 4 light fixtures on one circuit.
2) There may be panel manufacturer restrictions as to where larger amp breakers can be installed. Double-check that before putting large breakers in the bottom slots.
3) Pump, dehumidifier, heater, and fan all on one 20 amp may be exceeding the current capacity. You need to do the arithmetic.
1) Unless there's something
by DanH in reply to BuckeyeBeaver [original] on Fri, 06/20/2014 - 13:00
1) Unless there's something you haven't told us there should be no problem with the 4 light fixtures on one circuit.
So far I don't know of anything else on those two circuits. As I get into demolition I may learn more, but I'm pretty sure that's all there will be on that one circuit.
2) There may be panel manufacturer restrictions as to where larger amp breakers can be installed. Double-check that before putting large breakers in the bottom slots.
I'll look into that. I visited our building department and spoke with an inspector, asking the same questions I posted here. He pointed out a couple of things, but didn't have a problem with where I planned to put the 40 amp breaker.
3) Pump, dehumidifier, heater, and fan all on one 20 amp may be exceeding the current capacity. You need to do the arithmetic.
True. I'll have to find out what those numbers are and, as you say, do the arithmetic. The inspector didn't blink when I mentioned that, though.
The inspector did recommend that I read article 680 in the NEC. It's focused on pools. He pointed out that both the pump and the pool heater need to be hard wired. The pool will be over 6-1/2 feet from the electic panels. That distance didn't concern him, but the potential for corrosion did. He wants me to build a gasketed set of doors over the two panels to keep moisture out of them. This makes sense and, besides the fact that he said I need to do it, I agree with his logic. We are removing all the existing wood paneling in the entire room, walls and ceiling, and will replace it with something suitable for a moist environment, like green board. We have yet to investigate that issue so we don't know what makes the most sense.
We have enough information to know that what we want to do is doable. We took up the carpet and have begun deconstruction of the finished walls.
Thanks for the reply.