LESLIE: Chance in Florida, welcome to The Money Pit. I understand you’ve got a hot tub question.
CHANCE: Yes, I have a – it’s a 220 hot tub and I wanted to know if I could wire it into my outside – I live in a duplex …
TOM: OK.
CHANCE: … and I want to know if I can wire it directly into the AC unit outside of the house.
TOM: The answer to that, Chance, would be no because the air conditioning compressor and the hot tub both need what’s called a dedicated circuit. In other words, the circuit has to go right from the appliance – be it the air conditioner or the hot tub – directly to a circuit breaker on the main panel. You cannot share one of the subpanels; in your situation that would be the subpanel that the air conditioner is already into. You cannot share that circuit. For one thing, you wouldn’t be able to run the air conditioner and the hot tub at the same time, but the other thing is it could be dangerous. So you have to direct wire or home run, as it’s called, the circuit right from the hot tub into the main electric panel.
CHANCE: I understand.
TOM: Very simple solution, not expensive, not difficult to do and if you’re not familiar with wiring do not do it yourself because you’re going to get hurt. Those are very big electrons, as opposed to the tiny ones that are in other parts of your house. You could get hurt. So I would get an electrician in there, put a dedicated circuit in and you will be good to go.
Chance, thanks so much for calling us at 888-MONEY-PIT.
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