Home of the BrewNosers

SSIA,

I can find a Siemens one really cheap online, but the Cutler Hammer GFC series 30 amp GFI dual-pole breakers are difficult to find. Anyone have a source? Best price I've found so far is $185 at Garybar (Harris & Roome). The specific part manufacturer number is: GFCB230

My other option is a spa panel, but that seems to be more expensive!

Thanks

Dave

Cheapest I've found is on eBay, $100 shipped. Damn those things are pricey!

I personally don't see the need for GFI so long as your equipment is well grounded. I don't use one. Hell, I've never seen one on an electric hot water heater or tea kettle.....

X, you're crazy. I don't mind spending a bit of extra money for safety. I don't have to worry about shorts or electricution, especially since my rig is indoors.

Dave, this is the GFCI spa pannel that I got from a Canadian ebay seller. $140. I plug it into my dryer outlet. http://www.ebay.ca/itm/Spa-hot-tub-Siem ... 0838022492

So long as the equpiment is grounded, gfi's are useless. I do not worry about shorts or electrocution either, nor should I. I would bet money on a faulty gfi over a bad ground that I did myself. You're spending extra money for peace of mind, not safety.

mr x wrote:So long as the equpiment is grounded, gfi's are useless. I do not worry about shorts or electrocution either, nor should I. I would bet money on a faulty gfi over a bad ground that I did myself. You're spending extra money for peace of mind, not safety.

OK, you're strictly right - but I would not bet money on the ground in a house I hadn't wired myself. And I don't think I'd bet my life on the ground of a house I had wired myself.

It used to be you could count on a good ground by connecting to the plumbing, now try to even find anything metallic in your plumbing...

as a side note, I'm also looking for about 30' of 10-3 SJOOW or SJEOOW electrical cable....

derek wrote:

mr x wrote:So long as the equpiment is grounded, gfi's are useless. I do not worry about shorts or electrocution either, nor should I. I would bet money on a faulty gfi over a bad ground that I did myself. You're spending extra money for peace of mind, not safety.

OK, you're strictly right - but I would not bet money on the ground in a house I hadn't wired myself. And I don't think I'd bet my life on the ground of a house I had wired myself.

It used to be you could count on a good ground by connecting to the plumbing, now try to even find anything metallic in your plumbing...

If you wouldn't bet on the house wiring, there isn't much sense counting on that gfi that's connected to it. FWIW, I personally checked my connections so I know they are secure.

Your ground you installed might be fine but it's part of a bigger system that can fail in multiple ways, trust me. Even a grounded system can allow a staggering amount of current before it will trip. A GFCI will shut that circuit down much, much faster as it constantly monitors current on the supply compared to the return. It definitely serves a useful purpose.

Have you checked Nedco and Liteco for the breaker?

People fear what they don't understand. Anybody with an electric hotwater tank and having a shower is standing in a stream of water directly connected with immersed elements without gfci protection. But they trust the plumber who hooked the wires up?
Find someone who understands bonding and get them to help.

mr x wrote:

derek wrote: OK, you're strictly right - but I would not bet money on the ground in a house I hadn't wired myself. And I don't think I'd bet my life on the ground of a house I had wired myself.

If you wouldn't bet on the house wiring, there isn't much sense counting on that gfi that's connected to it. FWIW, I personally checked my connections so I know they are secure.

Yeah, actually, I would count on the GFI. It's true they can fail, too, but it's a major protection against, say, a screw driven through the ground element of a cable in a wall (I've had that happen). And as Brian said, they trip on milliamps, instead of 10s of amps. There's a reason it's called a Ground Fault Interrupter. Sometimes, there are faults - and no matter how often you check your wiring, sometimes there faults that have occurred since the last time.

HPhunter wrote:People fear what they don't understand. Anybody with an electric hotwater tank and having a shower is standing in a stream of water directly connected with immersed elements without gfci protection. But they trust the plumber who hooked the wires up?
Find someone who understands bonding and get them to help.

This. Proper grounding is gold. Everything else is secondary. In addition to that, I've seen to many failed breakers to ever trust my life to one.

Alot of points made here many valid, however for someone who doesn't fully understand the concepts and reads this (already hoping to avoid a GFCI to save some $$) they may be misinformed.

The examples of how tea kettles don't require GFCI's and neither do hot water heaters isn't exactly a great comparison. For one both items are purpose/professionally designed and tested/certified to be safe for this purpose. Again even though many people compare electric brew setups to hot water heaters, its not the same. Electric water heaters are again purpose built and you are not working directly around them transferring water/etc. As for standing in the shower and being concerned about your hot water heater not being GFCI protected, a lot of things would have to go wrong for this to be a concern (you can probably google as to why this isnt a big concern).

The concern for the electric brewery setups are not so much the elements immersed in water but the water present around all of the connections/etc (which is not as much an issue with hot water heaters, and if there is water around a kettle then it should be plugged in to a GFCI outlet (kitchens/bathrooms/etc). Earth bonding is also a significant issue with most homebrew setups you see, forming some sort of metal on metal contact is not necessarily enough, nor is testing with your Canadian tire multimeter technically. In industry ultra-low resistance ohmmeters are used to this purpose to confirm the bonding is very low resistance, similarly when your appliances are manufactured/tested (micro ohms in some cases). GFCI's are not as common in many industrial applications (for various reasons) mainly due to the understanding/precautions/defined use which is mentioned here but I don't believe thats an arguement for people to not use them in their DIY homebrew builds.

GFCI's fail, breakers in general fail anyone who works in industry has seen it plenty and often seen the consequences. This isn't a good argument for forgoing this protection though.

I'm not trying to argue, and for people here who have said they are not necessary they appear to fully understand the reasoning why and have taken necessary precautions. My advice would be if your reading this to determine whether you should have a GFCI or not then YOU SHOULD, if you understood the reasoning/precautions to not require one, you would not be reading this to determine if you do.

For our build we managed to get a Cutler Hammer 50A GFCI spa panel at Lowes while in the US for $50, to me the little bit of extra protection is a no-brainer

If grounding equipment wasn't the safest way to prevent electricution, I 'd be attending funerals twice a day. If I get time tomorrow I'll post a video of me passing on a 300hp motor while I'm standing in water.

Sent from my Nexus S

HPhunter wrote:People fear what they don't understand. Anybody with an electric hotwater tank and having a shower is standing in a stream of water directly connected with immersed elements without gfci protection. But they trust the plumber who hooked the wires up?
Find someone who understands bonding and get them to help.

Amusing, but I understand just fine. I'm an industrial electrician. If anything, people don't realize how dangerous electricity can be. Just because somebody has always gotten away with something, doesn't mean they always will. Electrical accidents happen very quickly, and often without warning. Google available fault current from a transformer, and interrupting capacity of fuses and breakers. A 15A fuse doesn't trip at 15A in a fault condition. Like Derek said, less than 100 mA can kill you anyway.

Like was said above, there's a huge difference between the two things you're comparing. And to clarify Rob, I'm not suggesting the absence of a proper ground. Quite the opposite, it's necessary. Yes, breakers sometimes fail, all the more reason to use a GFCI as it very quickly isolates that part of the circuit. It's a solid state device, which is much less likely to fail then a mechanical device such as a circuit breaker (which is almost always the part of them that does fail).

mr x wrote:If grounding equipment wasn't the safest way to prevent electricution, I 'd be attending funerals twice a day. If I get time tomorrow I'll post a video of me passing on a 300hp motor while I'm standing in water.

Sent from my Nexus S

I never intended to imply otherwise. My point was more to the effect on a homebrew DIY level the average person should have secondary protection (ie. GFCI) because I highly doubt they will take earth bonding as serious as it is on an industrial level. Where I work all of the power is ungrounded and there is plenty of contact with water(shipboard) so equipment earth bonding for people protection is critical and taken seriously, on the average homebrew rig I highly doubt it is.

Even with a GFCI you're not entirely safe, you cannot ignore earth bonding and there is a reason GFCI's have test buttons on them!

There is no reason for your equipment not to be grounded properly afaiac. In this case, a gfi is a security blanket that allows you to do something very important important wrong.

Sent from my Nexus S

Yes, it is SECONDARY protection. I'm surprised your willing to put all your eggs in one basket (even if it is the best basket). It does not allow you to do something very important very wrong, it protects you from something going wrong.

You cannot compare an industrial environment to a residential, and in a residential environment GFCI's should be used (and in many cases required) in wet locations. Code implications here are a grey area so I wouldn't make that argument, but things fail. Anyone with a non-fixed setup I don't think just focusing on earth bonding is enough, not unless your going to check it every time you setup.

I'm not saying your doing anything wrong, nor am I advocating that you should use a GFCI. However I don't think you should be advocating that others should not use GFCI's however.

Ground is ground, whether it's at the mill, shipyard, or home. The principles and practices are the same in regards to grounding. I know my home wiring, and am quite confident in it's safety. I just would not put my life in the hands of a breaker when I know proper grounding is what I trust my life with every day at work. I'm not advocating not using a gfi. I am advocating that people understand what they are doing and the reasons behind those actions.

Sent from my Nexus S

I'm just going to concede this one, as this is already way off topic and I do agree with your premise.

To the OP, id suggest trying to find a way to get one from the US. They are much cheaper, and in many cases spa panels (although they're mostly 50A & up) are cheaper then just a breaker (due to their wider market i expect, as in many places they are required by code). Why we get screwed so bad in Canada on these I do not know.

The one we picked up (50A) was $54 at Lowes/HD in the US or $220 for a similar one in Canada. Luckily the breaker inside of it is a BR series, so we may just use it directly in the panel rather then install the spa panel.

I'm done with this one, it's been fun

Did you end up finding one cheap?