Mike Holt Enterprises Electrical News Source

Swimming Pools and the Dangers of Electrocution

If you know of anyone who has a pool, you might want to consider reading this newsletter so that you better understand the issues with swimming pool safety.

All swimming pools and spas require GFCI protection and proper grounding systems. And yet there are still accidents occurring. These accidents happen inevitably because sytems are not up to the current codes and standards, and GFCIs are not tested periodically as required by the manufacturers. All pools should be checked regularly by qualified contractors.

All pool equipment related to the water recirculating system should be on a GFCI protection device; this applies to motors (required by the NEC) salt chlorinators and heat pumps (not required by the NEC). In addition, the wiring, including the equipment grounding for all 120V pool lights, needs to be disconnected at the panel or the light needs to be low voltage without an equipment grounding conductor. If you do an inspection, be sure to send a written report to the customer; if you find any equipment not GFCI protected or any metal parts not bonded, then it is an unsafe condition. Let the customer understand what needs to be done before anybody uses the pool again.

Before you consider checking a swimming pool for proper bonding and grounding, please ensure that you understand electrical fundamentals, grounding versus bonding, NEC requirements related to swimming pool bonding, Neutral-to-Earth (NEV) voltage related to utility wiring, and how to troubleshoot to ensure swimming pools are properly bonded.

Visit www.MikeHolt.com/Swimming Pool Bonding

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"Folks are waking up to the real dangers of electricity and water. As 30 year old pools continue to deteriorate, more accidents will happen. Be smart. Get the pools inspected. Test the GFCIs monthly.

Don't have GFCIs? Call a professional, and don't swim until you are sure your pool meets all the codes and standards."

David Rifkin, Electric Shock Drowning Protection Association.

Circulate this information to your friends, family and customers - summer is almost here and thousands of people will be getting out of the heat by jumping into a swimming pool!

Mike Holt Newsletters on ESD and Electrocutions
Comments

  • Wonderful and informative...we have a pool...Thank you

    vito  May 12 2019, 4:48 pm EDT
    Reply to this comment

  • Let me explain, a a gfci is a dfferential current detector. If two hot legs of a circuit are exposed the current in both the legs is the same and will produce a deadly voltage gradient in fresh poorly conductive water.

    Bob gisborn  May 11 2019, 2:10 pm EDT
    Reply to this comment

    • Reply from: David Rifkin   May 11 2019, 3:45 pm EDT
    Having ground fault protection may not protect from currents in the water in some unusual circumstances. Let's say you two boats sharing a 120/240v service on a single feeder breaker (that's a GFP tripping at 30ma). Boat A develops a 2amp leak from L1 to the water. Boat B develops a 2amp leak from L2 to the water.

    It is possible that not enough of this leakage current will escape and cause a ground fault trip. It's simply traveling between L1 and L2 using the water as a sort of neutral conductor.

    This has been observed in the field, although at the time it was not fully understood.

    555 of the NEC now requires an individual GFP not exceeding 30ma on each shore power receptacle. This will prevent the above scenario from occurring.

    This problem is only present due to the split voltage multiwire branch circuits we use in the USA. If we went to 240v to ground exclusively, this problem goes away (but yes, there are other dangers associated with double the voltage to ground).
    Reply to David Rifkin

  • Ground fault protection yes but it Is possible to have a voltage gradient with all forma of ground faulty protection.

    Bob  May 11 2019, 1:01 am EDT
    Reply to this comment

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