GFCI Question: Breaker vs Spa Panel for new install.

My understanding is that the MAIN reason so many of you are purchasing the Spa Panel for GFCI protection is that it is much less expensive than purchasing a GFCI Breaker to go into the breaker panel. It's not that it's better, but that it's more cost-effective for DIYers.

We will be moving to a "new" house in a few weeks. The house has a wonderful unfinished area (14' wide x 32' long) in the basement for a combination workshop and e-brewing area.

The breaker panel in the basement is completely full, so I'm going to have an electrician install a sub-panel and a few circuits that I will need for various things (couple of 220V as well as a couple 110V).

Since my work is going to require the services of a professional electrician, and he will be installing a panel and running some wires, might it be preferable to have him simply install a 220V GFCI breaker into the sub-panel to use for my e-brewing circuit?

Thanks,
Keith

You would be giving up some level of portability with a spa panel GFCI that you can move with your rig. If that is not a high priority, then go for it. The only other consideration I can think of is the distance between your rig and the GFCI reset button, but that should not be much of an issue.

jeffmeh said:

You would be giving up some level of portability with a spa panel GFCI that you can move with your rig. If that is not a high priority, then go for it. The only other consideration I can think of is the distance between your rig and the GFCI reset button, but that should not be much of an issue.

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I don't "think" portability will be an issue for me. I'm not so good at this that I would be carrying my e-BIAB kettle/keggle around to brew elsewhere. Certainly don't mind folks coming to watch/help/advise.

This 14' x 32' space runs across one end of the house. There's a single garage door at one end and another 14' x 12' room at the other end for storage. One long wall is shared with the "finished" space and has a door. The other wall has a couple of windows.

The breaker panel is also in this area as will be the sub-panel. I plan to brew indoors as much as possible, so I would like to install a sink (posted another thread regarding gray-water lift stations on the Equipment forum).

There's a nice concrete pad outside the garage door, so it would certainly be easy for me to brew outside using a 220V extension cord during nice weather. I'm doing single vessel BIAB (and will be building an e-kettle), so it'll be a rather small cart to move around.

Anyway, I want to set up stationary brew area in this space, so the GFCI breaker - whether installed in the panel or as a Spa panel - won't be more than a handful of steps away. I also understand that I will need some ventilation for steam. Gotta figure out a way to design a ventilation hose/fan that will swing in/out of place at a window for when I brew.

Once we get in, I will have to decide whether I organize it as (1) one wall for workshop, opposite wall for brewing or (2) section either farthest from or nearest to garage door as workshop with other section for brewing. I'm leaning more towards #1.

Thanks,
Keith

If you don't mind spending the extra $50 for the GFCI breaker, it's a fine way to go.

Bobby_M said:

If you don't mind spending the extra $50 for the GFCI breaker, it's a fine way to go.

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Bobby, I didn't mention: the initial owner of the house had a hot tub outside under the deck. There's a panel with a door on it mounted under the deck with a conduit exiting the bottom and going to an outlet where the hot tub had been plugged in. I haven't opened this box, but I'm assuming that it's a GFCI panel. It's about 12" square box - so I'm sure it's more than simply a junction box. After we close on the house, I'm going to open up the box. If there's a breaker in it, I'm probably going to disconnect it, and have the electrician pull the wire back into the shop area and simply utilize the existing spa panel.

Thanks,
Keith

BTW, your weldless fittings worked great during my pumpkin brew last month.

That line definitely has to have a GFCI on it so if it's not already in the main panel then it's got to be in the remote box. A hot tub at minimum needs to have an emergency disconnect within a few feet of the tub and it must have GFCI somewhere. In many cases, the remote GFCI box serves both purposes. You're probably good to go.

jeffmeh said:

The only other consideration I can think of is the distance between your rig and the GFCI reset button, but that should not be much of an issue.

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I don't see that as an issue. The GFCI should never trip under normal use. If it does, you have a serious problem that needs to be looked in to and resolved before you continue using your setup. You should not have 'nuisance' trips with a GFI breaker that you need to reset continously.

To the OP:

You mentioned that your current panel is 100% full. How large is it? 100A?

Make sure to talk to the electrician a bit about doing a load calculation about how you intend to use the various electrical items in the house including the new things you'll be adding off the sub-panel (ie: how you intend to use things a the same time). In the worst case he may say that you may want to consider upgrading the main panel to larger service to avoid nuisance trips of the main breaker. For example, if your main panel is 100A and you like to brew while heating up the sauna and the hot tub is running while someone's cooking dinner in the electric stove, you may find yourself tripping that 100A main breaker.

It may be better to simply replace the main panel with a larger one and move the existing breakers over. There are often extra costs involved in doing this as you need to get the local electric company involved to cut power to your house temporarily (not always cheap) and possibly upgrade your service lines to the house (never cheap). Case in point: Ottawa Hydro charged me $932 to have someone come out and cut power in the transformer and re-apply 4 hours later when I went from 100A to 200A service. Insane.

Either way, good luck!

Kal

Kal, our power company won't even do that here. We just cut the lines up at the drop splice. After installing the new panel and drop cable, it gets spliced back into the aerial ... LIVE! That was fun.

Thanks, guys. I really hadn't thought about the fact that the sub-panel is included in the total amperage of the main panel. I will ask the electrician about installing a 2nd panel and dividing the circuits up between the 2. My previous house had 2 200-amp panels and each was about 2/3 full. This house is about the same size.

We won't have a sauna or hot tub, so I will probably steal that circuit for brewing. We need to add a 220V for the 3-phase motor that powers the blower for my pipe organ as well as another 220V for the radial arm saw and a 110V for the central vacuum. We'll probably add a couple more 110V circuits for various things over time.

Thanks, again, for the help. We're closing on this house on the 31st, and moving day is 11/12. I'm climbing the walls right now.

Once I get down all the measurements for the shop area, I'll seek some advice on arranging it for a workshop/brew area.

Thanks,
Keith

kzimmer0817 said:

...There's a nice concrete pad outside the garage door, so it would certainly be easy for me to brew outside using a 220V extension cord during nice weather. I'm doing single vessel BIAB (and will be building an e-kettle), so it'll be a rather small cart to move around...

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Just thinking outload but if you also wire one of the 240V outlets in the garage to the GFCI breaker then you would not need an extension cord.

kzimmer0817 said:

My previous house had 2 200-amp panels and each was about 2/3 full. This house is about the same size.

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FWIW it's not about how full a panel is or how big a house is, but how the items are used. A good electrician will ask the right questions. If you don't plan on using many things concurrently, you'll likely be fine.

Kal

kal said:

I don't see that as an issue. The GFCI should never trip under normal use. If it does, you have a serious problem that needs to be looked in to and resolved before you continue using your setup. You should not have 'nuisance' trips with a GFI breaker that you need to reset continously.

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I agree. Unfortunately, I see a common design around the forum that incorrectly uses the GFCI functionality of the breaker as a means to E-Stop their system.

FastTalker said:

I agree. Unfortunately, I see a common design around the forum that incorrectly uses the GFCI functionality of the breaker as a means to E-Stop their system.

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Good point. I forgot that many people seem to do that. For those people having the GFI breaker far away would be a pain. (I agree that the GFI functionality of a breaker should not be used as a E-Stop).

Kal

kal said:

Good point. I forgot that many people seem to do that. For those people having the GFI breaker far away would be a pain. (I agree that the GFI functionality of a breaker should not be used as a E-Stop).

Kal

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While I suspect that I am prodding a hornets' nest with a stick, why do you contend it is a poor choice to trigger a GFCI for an e-stop? Is it prone to fail (not trip the GFCI when the e-stop is hit)?

It would seem that the advantage would be that power would be cut upstream of the control panel, as opposed to an e-stop switch in the control panel which even when open would have a hot wire running into it.

I don't necessarily think the latter situation is a big deal that needs to be fixed, but I'm curious as to the concerns around a GFCI e-stop.

Thanks.

I think both your points are valid, it's been rehashed around here.
I'm personally putting in both - a GFCI E-stop in the box which should shut off power at the GFCI cord, killing all power to the box; and a DPST switch before the 240 outlet that will cut off all power to the outlet itself.

Hopefully I will never need either but nice to have options, never know what situation you might find yourself in....

jeffmeh said:

While I suspect that I am prodding a hornets' nest with a stick, why do you contend it is a poor choice to trigger a GFCI for an e-stop? Is it prone to fail (not trip the GFCI when the e-stop is hit)?

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IMHO it's completely backwards. You're creating an even more unsafe situation by shunting current where it shouldn't go in the hopes that the GFCI will work correctly by cutting power. What if it doesn't? It's sort of like driving your car into a brick wall to activate your seatbelt/airbag.

A GFI is a safety net that shouldn't be part of the design of the system since it's usually separate. I don't see it being up stream as an advantage at all.

By all means use an e-stop but have it control a relay or something that cuts power to the panel instead right at the input. That's right at the input.

Kal

+1 GFCI cutouts are not failsafe, especially if you live in a lightning prone area.

As to the original question, I went for a spa panel because it was cheaper. (Also I got a free box. You can take the GFCI breaker out of the spa panel and put it in the main breaker box if they are compatible. And if there is room for it.)

kal said:

IMHO it's completely backwards. You're creating an even more unsafe situation by shunting current where it shouldn't go in the hopes that the GFCI will work correctly by cutting power. What if it doesn't? It's sort of like driving your car into a brick wall to activate your seatbelt/airbag.

A GFI is a safety net that shouldn't be part of the design of the system since it's usually separate. I don't see it being up stream as an advantage at all.

By all means use an e-stop but have it control a relay or something that cuts power to the panel instead right at the input. That's right at the input.

Kal

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OK, I believe I understand your points.

1) A GFCI can fail closed (and from a basic google search, apparently do so more often than I would have thought), so it is not a reliable component for an emergency shutdown system
2) The GFCI is not usually integrated within the control panel, so if it is not there, then emergency shutdown is not operable
3) To trip the GFCI requires shunting sufficient current to ground that it would be dangerous if shunted through the operator

If I understand your design correctly, where the power enters the control panel you have a contactor opened and closed by a key switch. If you wanted an e-stop you could put a normally closed e-stop pushbutton between the key switch and the contactor. That said, it is likely just as easy to turn the key switch off as it would be to twist and depress an e-stop.

Did I get that right? Thanks.

I guess with all of the things said so far - No one should ever push the test button on any of the GFCI breakers or outlets. Geeze...

For every one that has followed my diagrams -Sorry.. Don't use 'em any more. Apparently, with all of the BS said in this thread, it puts everyone at severe risk.

I'm done..

Edit: With all of this: Just keep in mind that you must pull the plug if you intend to open the controller. OR if the system is hard wired as some do it - walk the 50, 100, 200 feet to shut the breaker off when things go really wrong. In that case just look over your sholder once in a while for smoke. (Hey - It's an emergency after all.) Still -

P-J said:

I guess with all of the things said so far - No one should ever push the test button on any of the GFCI breakers or outlets. Geeze...

For every one that has followed my diagrams -Sorry.. Don't use 'em any more. Apparently, with all of the BS said in this thread, it puts everyone at severe risk.

I'm done..

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That's why you should go round poking things with sticks Jeff, you wake sleeping dogs
This has been hashed out many times, usually between Kal and PJ.
Everytime it comes down to one simple fact though:
Understanding what you are doing and the risks associated with doing it that way. Do not just follow a wiring diagram blindly because you might get a nasty shock (hahaha pun intended to try lighten the mood ) when it didn't act like you thought it would.
How many times have you been done now PJ?

mattd2 said:

...
How many times have you been done now PJ?

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For you as well -

jeffmeh said:

OK, I believe I understand your points.

1) A GFCI can fail closed (and from a basic google search, apparently do so more often than I would have thought), so it is not a reliable component for an emergency shutdown system
2) The GFCI is not usually integrated within the control panel, so if it is not there, then emergency shutdown is not operable
3) To trip the GFCI requires shunting sufficient current to ground that it would be dangerous if shunted through the operator



Did I get that right? Thanks.

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I don't know that I agree with #3.

Clearly it's not desirable to shunt current though a person but the whole point of GFCI is to mitigate the risk of electrocution. Doesn't mean it's going to feel good in the process though.

P-J said:

For you as well -

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Do we have a sticky for this? If not we need one... (not putting my hand up though )
Then we can just "Revvy" copy/paste when this comes up, all the argum... I mean information will be there and we can all rest easy(er)

whoaru99 said:

I don't know that I agree with #3.

Clearly it's not desirable to shunt current though a person but the whole point of GFCI is to mitigate the risk of electrocution. Doesn't mean it's going to feel good in the process though.

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#3 is correct... but I think it is the wording makes it sound worse than it is. When done as a direct and consious action to deliberatly trip the GFCI yes you are shunting enough current to kill someone but you are meaning to do it in a "safe" way to ground, i.e. you are not taking an exposed live copper wire and touching it to your panel.

Why would you intentionally shunt that much current when it only takes ~5mA to trip GFCI?

Not really even sure how you can shunt more than that (other than what occurs in the short GFCI reaction time) when ~5mA is the trip threshold.

jeffmeh said:

If I understand your design correctly, where the power enters the control panel you have a contactor opened and closed by a key switch. If you wanted an e-stop you could put a normally closed e-stop pushbutton between the key switch and the contactor. That said, it is likely just as easy to turn the key switch off as it would be to twist and depress an e-stop.

Did I get that right? Thanks.

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I think so. The e-stop should hold the control circuit closed so that contactor/relay closes and provides power to the box. If for any reason the e-stop fails the normal "home" position for the contactor/relay should be open so that you lose power immediately. You should have to smack in an e-stop to open the circuit. It should be easy to open the circuit, harder to close.

Kal

The e-stops I'm familiar with are big, red mushroom cap buttons. You just smack it with the palm of your hand or whatever and it's shutdown city. Having to turn a key or switch is too much for e-stop, IMO. Should be just hammer it and off.

I'd think a latching circuit would be appropriate. One momentary N.O. pushbutton to latch it "ON" then an on/off N.C pushbutton e-stop to shut it down. If you wanted a key lock that would be fine, but in series with the N.O. latching pushbutton or at some point in the power supply circuit prior to the latching pushbutton.

whoaru99 said:

Why would you intentionally shunt that much current when it only takes ~5mA to trip GFCI?

Not really even sure how you can shunt more than that when ~5mA is the trip threshold.

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Thank you. Exactly.!
If anyone bothered to look at the actual circuit in my drawings.

For whoever mentioned using the breaker from a spa disconnect in their feeder panel. I highly advise you to check the specs of the device you think is a circuit breaker. All the ones I've come across in the field (I'm a service electrician) were solely gfci protected disconnect switches. not overcurrent protection devices. This is why they cost less than a real circuit breaker. If you bucked phases or shorted line to neutral, or simply overloaded the circuit ... Nothing would trip.

A circuit breaker IS essentially a contactor. A mechanically held contactor that is opened either mechanically, thermally or electrically.

The electrically held contactors we are using in e-stop circuits require power to the coil to close and hold the contacts that supply the main power to the control panel. The GFI shunt method requires the lack of a leakage current to ground to maintain main power at the control panel. To interrupt main power to the panel, both systems require a switch and the contactor device to function properly

They seem very similar but the fundamental difference is that the contactor is electrically held and the breaker is mechanically held. Removing power from the coil of a contactor and having it return to it's normal open state is just more reliable than the inner workings of a GFCI device. At least that's my mumblings on the topic...

grandequeso said:

For whoever mentioned using the breaker from a spa disconnect in their feeder panel. I highly advise you to check the specs of the device you think is a circuit breaker. All the ones I've come across in the field (I'm a service electrician) were solely gfci protected disconnect switches. not overcurrent protection devices. This is why they cost less than a real circuit breaker. If you bucked phases or shorted line to neutral, or simply overloaded the circuit ... Nothing would trip.

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I have seen AC disconnects like that with no current rating printed on the breaker handle. I believe if a number is printed, it is an overcurrent device. But, that is a good thing to watch for.

grandequeso said:

For whoever mentioned using the breaker from a spa disconnect in their feeder panel. I highly advise you to check the specs of the device you think is a circuit breaker. All the ones I've come across in the field (I'm a service electrician) were solely gfci protected disconnect switches. not overcurrent protection devices. This is why they cost less than a real circuit breaker. If you bucked phases or shorted line to neutral, or simply overloaded the circuit ... Nothing would trip.

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Thanks for the warning, I'll take your word on that... better go back and check.

Edit: Well I have just gone down and checked, and it says on it "circuit breaker with GFCI protection" with 50 on the switch, and it looks like a regular circuit breaker. I don't know whether what I have is a typical spa panel, but FWIW it is Midwest model # UG412RMW250P, and their literature states that it "Includes both overcurrent and ground fault protection". There may be a device number on the breaker that I can look up to make sure, I'll have another look later.

If it says that it has overcurrent protection it is safe to use it in a panel.

P-J, please understand that I meant no disrespect whatsoever, and I do appreciate all that you do to help others on here with their builds. I did sincerely want to understand the logic behind the objections to this design feature. Personally, I do not object to the feature, but would caution those using it that they should test their GFCIs frequently, given what I have learned about failure rates.