ECN Forum Forums General Topics of the Trade General Discussion Area 2 pole gfib's

this question may sound elementary to some but in the installation of a 2-pole gfi breaker for a 240v pump motor what wire connects to the center term (neutral) on the load side of the bkr when there are only 2 ungrounded conductors and 1 equipt grounding conductor? this application is for a swimming pool skimmer pump. is the pump gfi protected?
thx., ken m

If the circuit does not need a neutral then you don't need to run one. If it does need a neutral then it must be connected to the neutral terminal of the GFI breaker. The pump is protected.

[This message has been edited by caselec (edited 08-09-2002).]

Ken,
If the circuit doesn't require a grounded conductor, then there is no connection made to the laod side neutral on the GFCI. The line side neutral must be connected to the panel neutral buss. The GFCI will work just fine on this two wire circuit. It monitiors the current on the two hots and the neutral, and as long as this sums to 0 there is no ground fault. When some of the current returns by a path other than the two hots in your two wire circuit, the sum will no longer be 0. The GFCI will trip when this sum exceeds 4 to 6mA. The same thing happens on a three wire circuit. Under normal conditions, the sum of the three currents is 0.
Don

thanks for the replies! as you can probably sumise i do little to no work on spas and pools. such a liability especially when you know children are in the pool. the reason i was called in to do(correct) the job was the installer had tied the filter(1/2hp) and skimmer pump(1/3hp) motors together on the same 2-pole gfcb (30A). he had the under water pool light(120V) entering the brkr box with the grounded conductor connected to the center post of the 2-pole gfcb. the ungrounded conductor traveled to a remote switch which was then fed from a gfi recpt mounted adjecent to the brkr panel. the pool cover motor was also protected by the same gfi recpt. ????
any comments?