Pool Lights

[dan76n]

Hi all,
Recently had our pool finished and the pool guy told me to get an electrican to hook the lights up. He made a point that he must make sure that the earth wire is also connected. There is an earth wire at the end of the pool just sticking out of the ground but Im just curious as to what this is required for being it is basically earthed already? What is this wire connected to any way?

[rrich]

The earth wire should be connected to three things.
A ground rod a couple of meters into the earth,
The cold water plumbing system, and
The ground bar inside the service panel. (Circuit breaker box)

If the earth wire is connected to the earth or grounding system of the house, that should be sufficient. (The house earth system should already be connected safely.) I would not run two separate earth systems, one for pool and one for the house. There is the possibility of different earth potential and with a wet environment it may be hazardous.

[lola]

g'day dan
sounds like you got a concrete pool.that earth wire sticking out of the ground will be bonded onto the reo mesh of the pool structure.
by law it must be connected to the earth system of the premesis
it should run back to your switchboard but have rarely seen this done it is usually just connected to the earth at your pool pump outlet
having said all that best to get a sparky in

[Iain]

I thought pool lights were all low voltage and isolated from the main supply, we had a 12v system when we had a pool.

[dan76n]

The lights are 12v as I have 2 transformers that I need to get installed.
Im assuming the earth is to do with the lights