Tiger River Bangle electrical question

[danadog]

Hello everyone and I must admit after spending a couple of hours reading post i am very impressed with your form.
Anyway I just picked up an older Tiger River Bangle model M (2000) and was surprised by the electrical requirements with it needing both 30 and 20 amp breakers. After reading all of the posts I now understand why.
My house is new and I had the builder run a dedicated 50 amp wire out to the hot tub pad. When they did this he put a 50 amp GFI in the panel in the garage and a disconnect sub panel out near the pad.
Now for my question.
Do I need to use a Watkins brand sub panel with their 20 and 30 amp breakers or can I head on down to Home Depot and pick a new sub panel with room for both 20 and 30 amp breakers?
Since I already have a 50 amp GFI in the panel in the garage do the breakers in the sub panel need to be GFI?
Looking forward to my first soak this weekend and thanks in advance for any info you can provide.

[Vanguard]

You will need to use the one from Watkins.  They typically don't carry this type of subpanel at any of the Big Box stores.

Good luck with your new to you Bengal.  Welcome to the world of hot tubbing!!

[Chas]

I'm going to disagree. Normally, I would say yes, get the Watkins part. I would even offer to sell it to you and ship it. But the fact of the matter is, it's only a "load center," or outdoor sub panel. Any one will work, as long as it has room for the right number of breakers. And since you have a GFI protecting the entire sub panel, no, you don't really need the two breakers inside the sub panel to be GFI breakers.

Save some cash. Be sure you find out if you need both breakers to be two-pole, or if you have the 'convertible' model Bengal which needs a single pole 20 Amp breaker and a two pole 30 Amp breaker. Then see if you want to put in another breaker for a GFI-protected outlet near the spa. Code requires it. Check with your local inspectors to see just how close/far away, but for most it is between 7 and 20 feet from the water.

However, I bet if you asked other electricians what the VERY SAFEST way to install it - they would all come up with different answers!! :-)

[Vanguard]

Well, I defer to Chas on this.  I really didn't think about the other panel being protected by the GFI. 

[danadog]

Thanks everyone.
I enjoyed my first two soaks in the tub already today. The first with with a nice cup of Joe watching the sun rise over the planes and the second one was about an hour ago with the wife and a couple of cold Fat Tires.
After speaking with Tiger River I ended up going with two breakers from Home Depot.Tiger River was in agreement with your post Chas.
Thanks again,
Danadog

[Peteyboy]

I'm surprised they agreed.
IMO you should have the breakers near the spa as GFI breakers.
If you are in a freezing climate especially.
If the heater shorts,  and it is freezing outside, the main GFI will trip shutting down the whole spa and if your not home it can freeze. If the 30 amp outside is GFI it will trip and leave the spa circulating. The 30 amp only runs the heater.
As a tech I would like the GFI's where I can get to them also.

[wmccall]

Let me extend a belated welcome to the forum. Love those early morning soaks.