220 sub panel with no Neutral

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I wired up a hot tub from the breaker box to a new gfci sub panel on the patio about 20 years ago.
I used 4 gauge wire.
In steel conduit.
60 amp gfci breaker.
It was a real bitch to manipulate those thick wires to hook things up.
And tough to pull in conduit.
Two conductors, plus neutral and ground.
I think I could have gone smaller on the neutral and ground, but kept it all 4 gauge for peace of mind, and in case of a dead short somewhere.
At the time, it was a real pain to locate the 60 amp gfci, most places only had 50 amp.
 
My hot tub I wired with a 50a in the panel then #6-3/G romex red, black, white, ground. My sub panel has two GFCI a 20a and a 30a per tub design. Then on to the tub I ran #8 individual wires (7) in seal-tite. The reason some tubs have dual GFCI is the heater is on the 20a and the rest of the tub pumps and control are on the 30a. If the heater goes out in the winter the tub recognizes it starts an alarm and goes into survival mode slowly circulating the hot water in the tub thru the piping. Doing this it gives you a good week to get heater replaced without anything freezing and breaking. Not all tubs have this but it is a feature they all need up north IMO.
 
Bud16415 - I like that feature of the safety circulator in case the heater goes out. I have had two hot tubs in the past. None of them had that feature. But what happens if there is a power failure for more than a day and you don't have a generator - yikes!!
 
afjes_2016 said:
Bud16415 - I like that feature of the safety circulator in case the heater goes out. I have had two hot tubs in the past. None of them had that feature. But what happens if there is a power failure for more than a day and you don't have a generator - yikes!!
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Worst case is I would drain the tub. Doing that gets most of the lines empty enough I feel to protect against bursting with a freeze.



Other people I know put a small cube heater in the pump area they can plug into a small generator if the tub conks out. It would take a good size gen to run the tub on.

I drain my tub into my grinder-pump tank that pumps out to the towns sewer system. if the power is out I would have to drain it to the back yard. In the fall I take all my garden hoses and blow them out with compressed air before I put them away. Nothing worse than trying to drain a hot tub with a hose full of ice.
 
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