Well pump

Plumdog_2

electricians moaning about cost because all breakers in panel must be GFCI starting right about now (NEC).

mack_2

WELL PUMP


This isn't a heating questions, but I figured you guys would know the answer...

Does the circuit to a well pump need to be GFI protected?

I have heard some people say Yes, because it is around/near water and others have said No, because it serves a pump and motor, etc. and the motor load would be causing the thing to trip all of time.

What do you guys think? What do you have on your own well circuits?

Thanks

Brad White_26

Mark GFCI

Yes.

National Electric Code requires it on all devices installed outdoors to my knowledge, but also as a good practice it is short money. Are you on that much of a budget?

Have you priced funerals lately?? God, they keep going up while people keep going down...

Ken D.

well

I agree with Brad.

m dewolfe

gfci

Yes they are required! Yes they do trip all the time. Yes they will blowout when you get a good lighting strike nearby. ..........but they will save your life!

Brad White_26

File this thread under

Darwin, Charles

Bill Nye_2

?????

I work in residential plumbing every day and specialized in pumps for a few years. I have NEVER seen a GFI on a water well pump. They have a ground wire now , but I haven't seen a GFI.

Swimming pools and whirlpools and spas , but not well pumps. New houses need arc fault breakers now in bedrooms. I'm not an electrician or an expert, I just have never seen one.

Brad White_26

If you have a ground fault

and did not know it, you could become the ground. By then it would be too late.

Water is an excellent conductor. So was Arthur Fiedler. What do they have in common?

Both are dead.

mack_2

Do you have GFI circuits to Hot Water Boilers? They too are full of water and connected to water and have water in pipes running all around them. Do you have GFI circuits to fridges with built-in ice makers that are connected to the house water. No, because the motor load would constantly trip the GFI. So, please leave "Mr. Darwin" out of it - this is a techinacl question, not one of cost. If you don't really know the answer please sit on the sidelines silent and maybe you can learn something.

mack_2

Do you have GFI circuits to Hot Water Boilers? They too are full of water and connected to water and have water in pipes running all around them. Do you have GFI circuits to fridges with built-in ice makers that are connected to the house water. No, because the motor load would constantly trip the GFI. So, please leave "Mr. Darwin" out of it - this is a techincal question, not one of cost. If you don't really know the answer please sit on the sidelines silent. I am looking for a serious answer not lame harassment.

mack_2

> and did not know it, you could become the ground.

> By then it would be too late.

>

> Water is an

> excellent conductor. So was Arthur Fiedler. What

> do they have in common?

>

> Both are dead.

>

>



Do you have GFI circuits to Hot Water Boilers? They too are full of water and connected to water and have water in pipes running all around them. Do you have GFI circuits to fridges with built-in ice makers that are connected to the house water. No, because the motor load would constantly trip the GFI. So, please leave "Mr. Darwin" out of it - this is a techincal question, not one of cost. If you don't really know the answer please sit on the sidelines silent. I am looking for a serious answer not lame harassment. Thank you.

mack_2

Brad - Are Hot Water Boilers connected to GFI circuits? They too are full of water, connected to water, and are surrounded with pipes full of water. What about large fridges with built-in ice makers? They too are connected to the city water. No, because the motor load would constantly trip the GFI. So I am asking a technical question. This has nothing to do with cost or an unwillingness to do the wiring. If you don't know the exact answer either, then please sit on the side lines silent. The "Mr. Darwin" harassment is not helpful. Thanks.

Brad White_9

Easy, Mark

All in good fun here...

Boilers, ice makers all the things you mention have one thing in common. They are indoors. Water is in the pipes.

With a well, the water is in the pipes on the outlet side, but outside the pump on the inlet side... when it rains, water is on the outside. Do you have an outdoor outlet for your weed wacker? It had better have a GFCI. Wet grass, wet earth. Electricity. Code and common sense.

A fault in grounding or insulation means that the water becomes an active conductor. The aura of discharge can be outside the pipe as well as inside. Up to the ground, into your hand, across your heart, down the other leg and you into the obituary column by noon tomorrow.

The concept of a GFCI is to break the circuits in milliseconds and milliamps. A normal breaker will trip with a delay somewhere between 800 ms and a minute if the overload is within the breaker range and let abundant amperage pass in the process. (Large starting torque motors like pumps often can run at multiples of 100% for short periods. But long enough to stun or kill you.) See motor data for "locked rotor amps" compared to running or full load amps. See what I mean.

The reason the GFCI is so sensitive is that it takes very amperage little across your heart to stop it and in very little time. Very little. It is all amperes.

The electric chair? 6 Amps. 2400 volts granted, but 6 amps and goodbye Ted Bundy. Your potential outdoors, 20A to start, tripple that with delayed fuses or breakers.

So, I do know the answer and will not sit silently. I was just teasing you and getting to the core of your rationale, and I for one believe that your life is worth a lot more than the cost of a GFCI device. And I do not even know you.

If I hit a nerve, I apologize, it was not directed at you. Be safe.

Brad

Ernie

Brad

Would you use GFI if well was physically located in your house, such as in the basement?

singh

Pump control box.

I have never seen or had an electician install a GFCI on the well pump line.
What is necessary is a pump control relay box, the capacitator will
"soft start" the pump motor until it is up tp speed. Yes,ground wire should be used .

My 0.02 cents.

Brad White_9

The wells I have seen have been outside the house

so the GFCI rule applied.

If inside the house, Ernie, I would have to evaluate if the well was sealed or open and what the local water level (wet floor condition) is. My basement takes on water now and again so all of my convenience outlets are GFCI protected and a ground bar bolted to the foundation.

Of course I imagine you are being hypothetical in that, in order to drill a well inside a house, the derrick would make an absolute mess of the rumpus room, living room and second floor front bedroom not to mention the roof...

Dave DeFord_3

Actually...

wells inside a house are not as uncommon as you might think. Many older wells were drilled inside the house or in a pit right next to the foundation with an opening into the house through the foundation. So that was not a hypothetical question, they are not at all unheard of. I am personally familar with one that is in a pit beside the house and know of others that are in basements. It's a country thing.

Scott Lind_4

GFCI on Well Pumps

You should ask your local authority having jurisdiction (i.e. the local electrical inspector) to be sure there is not a local ammendment to the NEC in your area. The following answer assumes that you are talking about a submersible-type well pump that is hard wired. The NEC, including the most recent edition (2005) does not require them for that application.

Brad White_9

I have seen

shallow hand-dug wells inside a house, (more like cisterns) but those like you said, were a country thing.. Used a manual pump. My grandparents house in VT, for one.

I wanted a well at my house in the city and they said I had to go 200 feet down at least in my area. No dice, and not inside the house. But a deep well? How would that be done inside (after the house was built)?

Dave DeFord_3

Shallow wells...

and generally pretty old ones at that. I don't believe that you can have them dug anymore just that there a still a lot of them around. The ones that I a thinking about about don't have a submerged pump, the pump sits in a pit and you can see the whole thing motor pump etc. I'm with you I don't think that you could drill a deep well in an existing house.

mack_2

Mine is inside. At one time I guess it was in the backyard, but then someone built an addition out over that portion of the yard, so now the well is accessed from a crawl space under that addition. The pump motor and tank are all inside the basement of the main (original) house, up in blocks, etc. high and dry. I am running a new circuit to that pump and that is why I didn't know if it should be GFI or not. I haved city water and sewer now, so the well is only an extra, something for watering the lawn, etc.

Brad White_9

So THAT's how they did that...

You solved the ship in a bottle dilemma, Mark- thanks.

Most water department regulations prohibit you from tying in a well to the house potable main without a permit. And if you do, you get a special credit meter (for an annual fee) but charged for sewer use, etc. etc. All of which I am sure you know. But the assurance of your own water supply for irrigation is well-placed. A good asset to have.

If the pump is indirect and not an immersion type (multi-stage inserted into the earth) with a plastic suction hose, and is indoors as you say, I could see getting away with grounded and no GFCI. Outdoors? Let's not go there..:)

Wonder if you can use that during a water ban? What would the neighbors say?

jackchips_2

My pump

is inside but the "shallow" well is about forty feet from the house. It is original to the house when built by my late father-in-law in 1968 but is now only used for the front sillcock.

We have been on town water since my wife and I renovated and took over the house in the early 70's.

No GFI but now I may ask my electrician brother about whether we should have one.

rick_36

I have seen houses with and without gfi protection, consult the local municipitality .