The pool steelers put a few rebar clamps on their rebar and stub out enough #8 wire so the electrician can get to it. They also bond the ladder cups and wet niches. If anything, they are too generous with the #8 they leave hanging out. They have little pigtails of it going in several directions out beyond the deck. The aluminum guys who build the pool screen cage bond their work with one or more of the #8s. The electrician will usually not even show up on site until after the first (shel) and second (deck) 305, when the y put in the raceway for the lights. After the concrete is done and the pool cage is in. The electrician snakes the pool lights into the niches, sets the J boxes, timers, transformers and connects the pump. They have usually run a 1" RNC for the pool from the panel in the house rough. They will snake in the appropriate feeder if this is getting a Spa Link or something. I assume he also verifies that all the things that are supposed to be bonded above ground are but all the underground was already finished and inspected. I know that is not how it is supposed to be done but that is what happens.
I know a lot of Florida inspectors argued with me that that wasn't the way it was supposed to be done but my wife built almost 100 pools in the last 2 years and that is how it went. Nobody said a word unless they failed one of the 305s. I suppose a few of the ECs might have been spot checking the work of the steelers and aluminum guys but they didn't do it very often. I do know the steel crews carried the #8 and a big box of clamps. I suppose the EC still got paid for it.
BTW George, if you saw the bozos that do pool plumbing you would do your own. That doesn't even get inspected in Florida, and you don't need a license to do it. The biggest problem with pools (based on warranty calls) is leaks in the plumbing, although some of that happens when they backfill.
In my pool I went behind the steelers and tied up their joints. They only tied about 10-20% of the junctions. I also put in a bunch more bonding but that was just me. I wanted my screen enclosure to be a faraday cage so it is tied to the pool steel 7 or 8 times around the edge and I also bonded the steel on the bell footer around the deck and the deck steel, years before NFPA said I should. When they bolted the posts for the main beam in, those J bolts coming out of the pads were bonded. I also dragged a #8 back to my spa bonding grid.
Last edited by gfretwell; 04/03/07 06:38 PM.
