Hot tub panel

[Mike Whitt]

If this panel is supplying a hot tub that is on the outside of a house the equipment grounding conductor itself must be insulated.

680.42 Outdoor Installations.
A spa or hot tub installed outdoors shall comply with the provisions of Parts I and II of this article, except as permitted in 680.42(A) and (B), that would otherwise apply to pools installed outdoors.

680.25 Feeders.
(A) Wiring Methods. Feeders shall be installed in rigid metal conduit, intermediate metal conduit, liquidtight flexible nonmetallic conduit, rigid polyvinyl chloride conduit, or reinforced thermosetting resin conduit. Electrical metallic tubing shall be permitted where installed on or within a building, and electrical nonmetallic tubing shall be permitted where installed within a building. Aluminum conduits shall not be permitted in the pool area where subject to corrosion.

(B) Grounding. An equipment grounding conductor shall be installed with the feeder conductors between the grounding terminal of the pool equipment panelboard and the grounding terminal of the applicable service equipment or source of a separately derived system. For other than (1) existing feeders covered in 680.25(A), Exception, or (2) feeders to separate buildings that do not utilize an insulated equipment grounding conductor in accordance with 680.25(B)(2), this equipment grounding conductor shall be insulated.

I have posted the code references above just for clarity and not as a invitation to hash out whether or not a Home Inspector needs to quote code.

The important part is to know that any time someone is supplying water for human contact on the outside the equipment grounding conductor is required to be insulated.

[Frank P. Newman]

Clearly there is more than enough in this panel for a HI to refer for further investigation. However, I was just interested in following up a little more on the exceptions that were mentioner earlier. Here are pictures of the installation in question:

Once I reviewed the original photo more closely, I can see that they did indeed bring separate conductors from the main distribution subpanel, but did not land them on separate, terminal strips. Then they drove a 'local' ground rod and connected it there as well. Not shown, but directly below this panel is another with (2) 2pole GFCI breakers which actually feed the lot tub area (in PVC conduit). So, it seems at the very least, they need so separate the ground and neutrals all the way to the tub equipment and do away with the local ground rod.

Thanks to all for the input.