Added benefit of spa panel?

[GregKelley]

Priced the spa panel at Home Depot. $50 like everyone says. However, the 30A GFCI breaker is only $70. If I was already going to put another 30A breaker in my box to handle this, plus add a 4 prong outlet to the spa panel, the cost is about equal. That being said, if there are no additional benefits of the separate spa panel, I figured I'd go with the 30A GFCI breaker.

 

[iijakii]

People do the spa panel because it's cheaper, or when they're renting and don't want to / not allowed to modify anything.

If you need to buy a breaker already just skip the spa panel IMHO.

 

[P-J]

It also depends on how long of a 'RUN' you have to the breaker panel when things go wrong. If you are doing a raw installation with new lines to your brew area, get the breaker.

 

[GregKelley]

Thanks for the feedback guys. If I tied into the line for the dryer or AC, then I could not brew while that item was running. I have room in my breaker panel and figured the cleanest way was to put in a new breaker and run a line to my brew area which will be in the basement.

 

[Bobby_M]

Having an additional place to manually disconnect is one benefit. Also, if your brew area is well separated from the main panel, it's easier to reset the GFI if you trip it.

 

[bigljd]

I mounted a 120v receptacle in the spa panel that's mounted on the wall in my brew shed. Since there is no other source of electric in the shed, this came in handy by allowing me to plug in my drill to run the barley mill and an overhead light that I wired up to allow for night brewing. The receptacle is protected by a 10 amp inline fuse.
This may not be relevant to you if you are in a room with other outlets.