Spa Electrical Requirements
Spa Electrical
Hooking up spa electrical should be left to a professional electrician.
There are several things to consider when hooking up a hot tub from proper wire thickness, adherance to any local codes, installation of an emergency disconnect near the spa, proper wiring of a hot tub gfci, installation of the 50 or 60 amp breaker as required depending on type of spa and the actual running of the wiring underground or in the rafters of the basement etc..
The easiest types of spas are the low spec spas that only have a total amount of amperage less than or equal to the dedicated power socket you can have installed for it.
Hot Tub Electrical
Hot tub electrical hookup can be for a 120V spa or 230V spa.
In Europe the spas are not 120V, but in North America they can be either. Europe uses 50hz equipment in the spa, North America uses 60hz pumps and equipment.
If the spa is used outdoors in a winter climate with snow, the 230V spa system will better keep up with heating demands.
A way to squeeze extra wattage out of a single supply line is to set the spa to not heat while pumps are on high speed or heater switches on. This is accomplished usually by changing either a dipswitch on the circuit board or repositioning a jumper on the board.
It is best to plan for proper voltage and allow heater to run as it needs to as otherwise this could result in a freezing condition in the winter.
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These "plug and play" type of models usually come with a GFCI - ground fault circuit interruptor (or RCD - residual current device) installed directly on the plug. Usually the plug and play type of spa do not come with heaters over 2kw and are more appropriate for spas that do not have alot of water volume or are used indoors.
Wiring the GFCI can be tricky, even for electricians, because some spas use a 3 wire lead while others require 4 wires for a 240V/60hz hookup. If you use an exterior shutoff box/panel near the spa the subpanel requires the hookup of the hot leg(s) to first go to the GFCI and then continue to the spa. The neutral is attached to the neutral bus and kept seperate from the ground during the run. Most locales require the subpanel to be at least 5 feet away from the spa. Some require it to be in sight though, so check with your local code for hot tub installation.
Your electrician will determine if your house supply can handle the required load of hooking up your spa. Refer your local electrician to the spa wiring diagram that comes with most brand of spa. If your spa requires a 3 wire hookup, it will be ground, hot and neutral wires. If your spa requires a 4 wire hookup, then there are 2 hot legs that provide 120V and 240V. How this is achieved is that the two hot wires are summed for 240V (120V+120V) and the components in the spa that require only 120V get their power by combining a hot and neutral wire for 120V.
Even if your spa only requires a three wire hookup, the wiring to the subpanel and through the GFCI still needs to be 4 wire for the GFCI to function and this is what trips up some electricians.
When burying wire in the yard, you must also adhere to local codes requiring certain depth below the frost line and run through PVC conduit. When the pipe goes up or down through the ground, PVC expansion joints may also be required by code.
The wire thickness (gauge) needed for your particular hot tub depends on the requirements of your spa. You may need a #6 or #8 gauge wire for this purpose.
Also of note, is that there are a few spas on the market that require a more complicated hookup and some even require 2 seperate GFCIs, so always check with your hot tub retailer, supplier, local code and electrician to make sure it is hooked up properly and never attempt to do electrical work yourself if you are not qualified to do so.