Rewiring pool - 110v vs. 220v benefits?

[poolpumpguy]

only advantage is that the motor will run cooler via lower amps which will improve efficiency of pump. = longer pump and motor life hot motors cook the grease off the bearings and stress the windings....a cooler motor is a happy motor ........ Jay longwood Florida

[chem geek]

poolpumpguy,

Yes, lower amps is less heat where such current is indeed lower -- that was never the question. The question was WHERE the lower amps were happening. Due to the parallel configuration of the pump at 110V, the current is split in half for each winding so even though the current into the pump is twice as high than with 220V, the current in each winding is essentially the same so the same amount of heat. However, as was pointed out above, the current before the split to each winding is double.

The assertion near the start of this thread was that there was DOUBLE the current in EACH winding in the 110V case and that is simply not true as it would result in QUADRUPLE the current going into the pump (since the current is split into two parallel paths) and that, of course, is not what happens at all. So what was being questioned was the reasoning or explanation, not the experience of what was seen.

Richard

[Me...]

LOL

230volts x 5amps = 1,150 watts
115volts x 10amps = 1,150 watts

Guess what, no difference in power consumption.

230 is useful if you wish to use 2-speed motors or bigger motors that can't be run on 115 volts.

The only real difference I see is in Heating. If you have a choice you definitely want 220 volts for your heating so you can go bigger. The 110 circuits seem to take such a beating from being on so much longer to accomplish the same heating task.

The downsides to 230 in a pool shed is you can't know how many time Mr. Homeowner miswires his own jobs and blows stuff up. Gee, I wonder why my light bulbs keep blowing up all the time! etc ...etc..

[charby]

Would you replace a 230 v to a 115v?

[czechmate]

There is never a benefit to replace a source for a given horsepower with a lower voltage.
First, either phase may have diferrent existing house load and therefore diferrent voltage drop during the course of a day. You would be hard pressed to find which one to use.
Secondly, your wiring, even if sufficient for lower voltage, will stay cooler at 230V and minimize its own voltage drop. Your packerhead make-up will transfer half the amps inside likely corroded wirenuts.
Your wiring comes in a common pipe to your filter pump, booster pump and the pool light.
20Amp rated #12AWG is allowed to carry only 80% - 16 Amps.
That amperage is further lowered, if there is more current carrying conductors in the same conduit.
Also, you never know how and when your neighbors on the same transformer affect either phase with their loads, so you optimizing with selecting both phases.
(Even though there is no really large single phase loads in the household, beside a coffeemaker and such, lot of homes have their loads pretty unevenly divided to breakers in the panel).