Wondering the cost to wire a pool? Are you thinking of making a purchase but scared about having extra charges to wire it? We can help answer that.

As a general rule the cost to wire a pool that is a basic above ground pool should be no more than a few hundred dollars. This is conditional that you purchase an above ground swimming pool that has a 1 or 1.5 horsepower plug in pool pump. The cost for permanently wired inground pool is a very different story.

As mentioned the wiring can be very different for the type of pool that you purchase. Read on so you don’t get any surprises.

1. How Much Does It Cost To Wire A Pool?

On average for cheaper swimming pools, it should not cost too much to wire. The most important thing is to have GFCI protection to protect the motor on your swimming pool. This can be done by just simply plugging 120 volt motor for the swimming pool in to your outdoor outlet. Your outdoor outlet is usually protected by a GFI breaker or GFI outlet with a reset button on it.

This is so that it protects the pump and the equipment for the swimming pool in case anything goes to ground. This usually applies for the blowup pools or the ones with metal frames. To the full-size to the full-size permanently mounted ones.

Providing that your pool pump has 1.5 hp or under. You can get it with usually 120 volt or if you meant to put the pool away from the house and the cord is not long enough. You can simply plug the pool pump in with a proper rated extension cord.

Please make sure you get a heavy duty rated extension cord it’s just a 14 gauge or larger 12 gauge would be even better. Make sure this is 14 gauge three wire or 12 gauge three wire so it has ground so it works properly.

Do you need an extension cord that is rated for a minimum of 15 amp. In any case and in this case you should not need to involve an electrician unless you need a new outside GFCI receptacle. In this case you should not expect to pay any more than a couple hundred dollars. To have this GFCI receptacle installed for your pool.

2.How Much Does It Cost To Wire An Above Ground Pool?

An above ground pool has many of the same principles as some of your smaller swimming pools. An above ground pool rated at 15 feet or larger. That is permanently mounted year-round should also have proper GFCI protection.

Most of these above ground pools will come with a 120 volt pump rated for 1 hp or 1.5 hp. You can simply plug this into a GFCI receptacle or have a specific home run back to your power panel on the GFCI breaker.

You can get a little fancier if you wish sometimes, or if involving pool lights. Sometimes the pool is not installed next to the house. This case where the pool is permanent year round we do not recommend running an extension cord for the pool pump.

You can check with your local electrician do you have an underground cable run over to a post with the GFCI outlet or GFCI breaker. The cost for this really depends on how far from the house you need to run. Generally it should be less than $1000 all said and done with the trench. This will ensure that you will not be tripping over extension cords or using a lawnmower to hurt the extension cord.

3.Do You Need An Electrician To Install An Above Ground Pool?

Generally you do not need an electrician to install an above ground pool. Most above ground pool companies will just install the pool for you and plug the pump in. There’s no need to make it more difficult than it has to be.

This will result in usually a 50 or 60 amp feed for a pool power. At this point we recommend having an underground cable run from the house to the pool to a pool shed. The shed can have all the equipment for your pool pump and anything involved.

If you run a piece of tech cable underground requirements for the tech cable at 3 feet over a vehicle area or 18 inches in a non-vehicle area. This cable will need to be run from your power panel right out to a small subpanel in your pump house.

It will also need to be installed on a GFCI breaker in your panel. This is where it can get more costly and you can expect to pay in excess of $1000 for this electrical work to be done. The cable alone can be a few hundred. The GFCI breaker can be at least that depending on the style panel that you have.

In addition to that if you have an old used and all that can become even more costly. A lot of times the fuse panel will not except a GFCI breaker. In this case you will need to fuse the tech cable running out to the pool house and then put a small sub panel with GFCI breaker in the pool house.

It is required that both the pump and the heat pump are protected by GFCI protection.

4.How Do I Run Electricity To My Above Ground Pool?

If you were going to install a permanently mounted cable to your swimming pool underground. You will need a electrician to do this for you. Electrician will come out of your service panel inside your house through your basement.

They can also run through your attic, decks at your building. They then come down the side of the house and will run through a trench over to the pool area. As mentioned above if this runs across the driveway it must be 3 feet in depth. If it is not in the driveway area then it must be 18 inches by code. Bottom of the trench must be lined with sand at least 3 to 6 inches.

Once the cable is in place I can be backfilled but needs burial tape 6 inches from the surface. If anyone ever tries to dig there again they will hit the burial tape before they hit the cable. The other end of the cable will then have a tech. The connecter installed on the tech cable and go up into small panel inside of a building.

Alternatively it can be mounted outside on post and this requires an outdoor rated panel which is more expensive. If you decide to go this route to supply power to your pool this can become more costly. Like mentioned above you can expect to spend a minimum of 1000 dollars and if you get an outdoor rated panel probably 1500 dollars or more.This is where pools become more costly to install.

5.Do You Need An Electrician To Install An Inground Pool?

You will need an electrician to wire an inground pool. At the end of the day you get what you pay for, so if you’re going to spend the money to install an inground pool you might as well have an electrician come in and do it properly.

The electrical code has a complete section on inground pools. Any current carrying parts of the swimming pool or metal parts must be bonded to ground. It’s usually results in a piece of number six green being bonded around the pool frame.

Most inground pools will have a pump house we’re all the equipment is stored. So you will need to wire this building usually with a light and a plug and a service panel to service the pool equipment.

You can expect to pay at least 3000 dollars and as high as 5000 dollars have a permanently mounted in ground swimming pool wired. Especially if you’re going through a financial institution they almost like a very require inspections on the electrical work before they will release the money to have the swimming pool financed.

Your electrician can pull these permits for you and have the electrical inspections done. There are very specific set of rules that the electrician was follow for inground swimming pools as it is to deal with electricity.

6.How Much Does It Cost To Wire A Pool?

As you can see so far from this article you can cost anywhere from a couple hundred dollars to thousands. It’s very difficult to put the same price on wiring a swimming pool because all swimming pools are different.

I think what we need you to take from this more than anything is to understand that the more expensive the swimming pool the more expensive the wiring. We have wired swimming pools before on high end and ground swimming pools with heat pumps lights a pump house All kinds of great stuff. In some cases it has cost it as much as $7500 dollars to wire someone’s pool. This was wiring up a complete pool shed with lights and plugs and lights for the swimming pool as well.

However with that being said some permanently mounted above ground pools away from the house usually require more electrical. Once you get your first season in the pool and you decide to put a heat pump to heat your pool it will require more electricity.

7.Electrical Code Requirements For Swimming Pools?

There is an entire section in our electrical code on swimming pools. GFCI protection is the most important is all swimming pools require no matter what size. Any metal parts on the swimming pool are to be bonded to ground.

Sometimes this means installing ground electrodes and other times this means wiring number six green to all the current carrying parts of the swimming pool.

Any other electrical loads also need to be protected including heat pumps lighting. In addition if you have an automatic pool cover this will need to be GFI protected as well.

8.Do I Need To Have GFCI Protection For My Pool?

By code all swimming pools that contain water need to have GFCI protection. Also referred to as GFI protection. This is known as a ground fault circuit interrupter. A ground fault circuit interrupter protects any leakage to ground voltage. This will immediately trip when it senses us over 5 mA protecting you from being electrocuted.

9.Emergency Power Shut Off For Swimming Pools

All swimming pools should have an emergency power shut off in the form of a switch. Whether this which be hooked to an outside plug or whether it be hooked directly to the pump it does not matter.

You should be able to kill the power instantaneously to the swimming pool. This is in case something malfunctions and someone gets electrocuted. Or an object like hair gets stuck in the intake of the swimming pool which could cause someone to drown.

Having the ability to shut the pump off immediately is very important.

10.Can I Run Underground Power To The Pool?

Follow specific codes when running underground power to a swimming pool. The cable that is run should be rated for underground. This should be installed in sand to protect it. If you decide to installing pipe the same rules apply.

Make sure you check with your local electrician on what the codes are for your specific area and it’s to how deep the cable needs to be buried.

The cable needs to be protected in all cases on each end and usually have a wider little damp location connecter installed to hook into the panel. When coming up from the ground it is a good idea to have an expansion joint installed on the cable. This is so that frost does not affect the cable buried in the ground. Your local electrician can you advise you of this when they give you a price on installing the pool wiring.

SEE WHAT WE RECOMMEND FOR POOL LIGHTING ETC…