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Author Topic: electric question  (Read 2122 times)

benalexe

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electric question
« on: May 07, 2008, 10:28:05 pm »
So I went to Home depot over this past weekend to get the electric supplies.  My neighbor is a liscenced electrician and will most likely be doing the install.  

Anyway the guy at HD did not know to much but I asked him for the break away box.  He gave me a 50 amp SPA control box.  Basically it was a breaker box and it said it had a ground fault.

I was looking on the thermospa web site and I noticed that my spa is better with 60 amp.  50 amp will work but it can't heat the water and run the pumps at the same time.

I knew Home Depot did not have a 60 amp because I originally wanted 60 and it was not carried.  The box I got from HD was about $70.

Today I went to an electric supply and what they had was completely different. They had  a break away box. This thing was like double the size as the box home depot wanted to sell me.  When you open the door there was not circut breaker, instead there was a GFI test and rest buttons and a black plastic thing that pulled out.  If you pulled it out the circuit would be cut off.   This was double the price of the home depot item at $150.

So now I am confused  which was the right thing to get?   I am assuming it was the one from the electric supply place but then It looks like the one from home depot was much more of a switch box to turn the spa off and on with a gfi.

The break away from the supply house seemed to not have an on off switch other than pulling out the black thing.  I guess you could also hit the test button to turn off the spa. or could turn it off from the separate breaker i the house.

Nevertheless could someone make light of all of this?

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electric question
« on: May 07, 2008, 10:28:05 pm »

Spatini

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Re: electric question
« Reply #1 on: May 07, 2008, 10:40:12 pm »
The box from the electric supply company is probably also a 50 amp gfi only it has seperate components and is wired differntly than the one from home depot ,instead of a breaker that you switch/flip off and on it has a removable connector that you pull out or insert for off and on  If you have a Lowes store near you they have gfi Spa box rated at 60 amps for around $98.00
go to this web site and read this page and it should explain most all you need to know
http://www.spadepot.com/spacyclopedia/wiring-hot-tub-spa.htm

benalexe

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Re: electric question
« Reply #2 on: May 07, 2008, 10:43:20 pm »
The box from the electric supply is definitely 60.  

What is the advantage from the pull out thing versus the switch?

Spatini

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Re: electric question
« Reply #3 on: May 07, 2008, 10:51:03 pm »
the only advantage I would see is that you know it is disconnected with no chance of accidently being flipped back on until you re-insert, other than that 6 of one half dozen of another

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Re: electric question
« Reply #3 on: May 07, 2008, 10:51:03 pm »

 

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