Looking for a solution to a problem that I did not see listed. We have a 99 Dakota Mariner that has recently been acting up and I am trying to do as much as I can before calling for the service guy (again) at $80/hr.

Last week, I came out and noticed the tub was not running and that the GFCI had popped, so I reset it and started the tub. Everything worked fine, and I went to do some other things. I came back about and hour later and it was down again, so same song, different verse. Since then, it seems to run for an unknown amount of time and then pops the breaker. I have unhooked both the heater and unplugged the blower (individually), and the GFCI has popped both times. I unhooked the GCFI to see it that was the problem and it was fine. I had the pump rebuilt this summer, so that should be OK. I have not unplugged the pump yet because the FLO message makes me nervous and I don't want to cook anything.

This is a two part question:
1) If I turn the heat down to 90 and unplug the pump overnight, will I wreck anything? I'm concerned about the autocycle and heater.
2) Any thoughts as to what the problem could be? I have my suspicions that infact it is the pump, but want to make sure I have exhausted all leads.

Thanks

Was this a built in GFCI with or without a current loop on the back? Or are you referring to a separately installed GFCI in a breaker box kind of thing?




This highly unlikely.

If you have an ozonator, unplug that thing too.

It's a separate GCFI in a box between the house and tub. We don't have an ozonator, so that's eliminated. I guess that is why I have narrowed it down to the pump. I looked again this am and it's down again.

It needs to be tested with BOTH leads to the heater disconnected.

The heater element has the highest probability of fault in 90+ pct of gfci trip situations.

However, both leads to the element have to be disconnected to test it.

I think (at least hope) that I got it. I spent a lot of time looking at various posts last night and looking at the advice given within those posts. I started thinking about when this had happened before. After much thought, I remembered that when the kids would crawl out of the tub, the would always get the control panel wet. It would then trip the breaker and go back on. I thought maybe that could be the cause, a condensation buildup under the cover that seeped/dripped into the control panel, causing it to short out. I pulled the control panel this afternoon and re-applied silicone caulk. So far, it has ran for 4 hours without snapping the breaker. I second guess if I should have used silicone caulk or something different, but that's what I had on hand. Maybe things are looking up.

Then again, maybe not. GFCI just tripped again. Maybe $80/hr is a small price to pay for the amount of frustration that I am feeling right now. I unhooked the heater and tried to start from scratch. Nothing there, and in fact, the GFCI now pops after 5 seconds. I have no idea what to do now.

So I traced it (or at least I thought I did) back to the GFCI. I unhooked the wires from the breaker to the tub at the tub and the breaker went twice. Thought I had it figured out. Picked up a new breaker today, installed it, got the tub up to 101, and the breaker popped again. It ran for over 5 hours tonight and heated up perfectly. I'm assuming the it has to be one of two things, either the box or the wire. The moles have been digging like crazy, but could they have chewed into the wire to ground it out? Because it happens after varying times (20 minutes to 4 hours), do I have a short in the wire or is it the box. I've ruled out the tub through previous experiments.

Is this plain buried uf cable?

Or is it in conduit?

It's buriable cable, but is not in conduit.

If it was grounding out due to cut/exposed wires, why does it happen at such odd intervals? That's what I can't get. It ran for hours yesterday afternoon, and then shorted out. I flipped the gfci and it ran for 10 minutes, then the gfci popped. If there is a cut in the line, wouldn't it automatically ground out as soon as I reset the breaker. Id like to hope it's the breaker box because that's a cheaper fix than 30 ft of 6-3 wire. It's only been in the ground for 5 years, and it's rated for burial.

I'm thinking it's the GFI breaker itself