Plaza Beach Resort and
Spa
600 North Atlantic
Boulevard
Daytona Beach,
Florida 32118
Swimming Pool Technical
Advisory Committee
Concurrently With The
Electrical Technical
Advisory Committee
October 14, 2015
10:00 AM
SWIMMING POOL TAC MEMBERS PRESENT:
Jim Batts, Chairman Kevin Flanagan
Jordan Clarkson Bill Dumbaugh
John O’Connor
(late arrival) Mark
Pabst
Gordon
Shepardson Bob
Vincent
John Wahler
SWIMMING POOL
TAC MEMBERS NOT PRESENT:
Tom Allen Corky
Williams
ELECTRICAL TAC
MEMBERS PRESENT:
Kevin Flanagan, Chairman Dwight Wilkes
Joseph Terito Steve
Mitchell for David Rice
Clarence Tibbs Neil
Burdick
Ken Castronovo Shane
Gerwig
Nelson
Montgomery for Leonard Devine, Jr.
ELECTRICAL TAC
MEMBERS NOT PRESENT:
Roy Van Wyk Oriol
Haage
COMMISSIONERS
PRESENT:
Fred Schilling Jim
Schock
Jeff Stone
STAFF PRESENT:
.
Jim Richmond Chris
Burgwald
Mo Madani April
Hammonds
Jim
Hammers Norman
Bellamy
MEETING
FACILITATION:
The meeting was
facilitated by Jeff Blair from the FCRC Consensus Center at Florida State
University. Information at: http://consensus.fsu.edu/
Concurrent
Swimming Pool and Electrical TAC Meeting
October
14, 2015
Page
2
Welcome:
Time: 10:00 am
Jeff Blair welcomed everyone to
the Florida Building Commission Concurrent Swimming Pool and Electrical TAC
Meeting in Daytona Beach.
Mr. Blair performed roll call for
both TACS and concluded there was a quorum for both with 9 of 11 members
present on each TAC.
Approval
of Agenda and Minutes:
Mr. Blair provided a total
breakdown of the agenda for the meeting today.
Swimming
Pool TAC:
A motion was entered by Mr. Batts
to approve the agenda for today’s concurrent meeting with the Electrical TAC
and the facilitation summary report from the September 28, 2015 teleconference
call held concurrently with the Electrical TAC.
Mr. Flanagan seconded the motion, the motion passed unanimously.
Electrical
TAC:
A motion was entered by Mr.
Flanagan to approve the agenda for today’s concurrent meeting with the Swimming
Pool TAC and the facilitation summary report from the September 28, 2015
teleconference call held concurrently with the Swimming Pool TAC. Mr. Batts seconded the motion, the motion
passed unanimously.
Phase I
– Low Voltage Lighting in Residential Pools for New Construction:
Mr. Blair explained the ranking
process and that this will be completed separately for each TAC.
There was extensive discussion
from both the Electrical and Swimming Pool TAC.
Mr. Blair provided a summary and
provided two options for ranking if the language was acceptable to the
group. The two options were:
A)
Require low voltage lighting in residential pools for
new pools (using Miami-Dade requirements)
B)
Maintain NEC requirements for new residential pools.
Mr.
Blair stated the options would be voted separately by each TAC group.
Mr. Blair then asked for any
comment from the public attendees.
Concurrent
Swimming Pool and Electrical TAC Meeting
October
14, 2015
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3
Phase I
– Low Voltage Lighting in Residential Pools for New Construction (cont.):
Bryan Holland, NEMA stated the
comments made today make sense except when we talk about making the code above
a minimum or enhancing safety. He said
this is not what has actually occurred in Miami-Dade and Broward County, what
they did was to simply eliminate an alternative equally safe method for
providing underwater illumination. Mr.
Holland continued with technical information and historical background.
Chris Sloan stated he did not
want to get ahead of himself as Phase II is very critical and this phase is his
passion but the issues being discussed are relevant and he said he believes
that we do not want to send a message that high voltage lighting is the only
thing that would make a difference. He
said stating this would create a false sense of security and lead to a panacea
if low voltage lighting was all that was required, your pool would be
safe. Mr. Sloan said he is the first to
admit and has been very clear from the beginning that his family incident he
wanted to make clear that they had low voltage lighting in their pool and
through mitigating factors involving grounding, bonding and corrosion in their
area led to his son’s electrocution in the pool when he made physical contact
with the pool light. However, he said he
had to say there have been many comments made this morning and he said if one
thing can make a difference, it is like a series of steps and you do not want
to find out in hind sight that you could have taken that step. Mr. Sloan said what he is concerned about is that
if this kind of brushes off and goes into the past and does not become a part
of awareness and education and we kind of defer to the Building Code and status
quo that somehow this will just disappear from people’s contentiousness and it
will happen again. He said high voltage ground interrupters without going into
very much detail with specifics due to ongoing litigation, but these devices do
fail, have failed and it is the construction of the light whether it is
aluminum or stainless steel verses plastic there is a number of factors, but as
it was just stated there is not a consistency between the Codes and he feels if
we can start making incremental steps and he feels Phase II is absolutely worth
discussing this adds another layer protection.
Mr. Sloan stated he is not saying this is in any sense a full on
solution. He said he would like to thank
the group again and would like for them to consider if they were sitting on the
other side of the table and your son was dead, he is not certain in his shoes
he feels it might be a different conversation if there are multiple things that
we can do at little to no cost, cost neutral and are not going to undermine and
more importantly if a change is made then it creates the idea of maybe there is
an issue with pools and as a homeowner I need to address if it is electrical or
grounding or could it be my pool deck was not grounded correctly. Mr. Sloan stated again he is not sure if the
group was sitting in his seat if they would not think differently because as a
parent to experience this kind of loss, you are looking for every possible
thing you can do to prevent a black swan incident of this happening to your
children and it is just one small thing and he does not see how as there are
other things that are important as well, but he does not see how this is going
to topple the pool industry. He said as
for products in his new pool and all have asked did you really put in a pool,
the answer was yes and they do have LED lighting and this is where the industry
is going and granted high voltage lighting is a significant part of sales and
he is not an electrician, however, again he wanted to point out is that we need
to start with incremental steps they are so important and if we kind of walk
out of this room and nothing is done, then this recedes into the past and
electrocutions will continue as this is not purely a high
Concurrent
Swimming Pool and Electrical TAC Meeting
October
14, 2015
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4
Phase I
– Low Voltage Lighting in Residential Pools for New Construction (cont.):
voltage issue. Mr. Sloan stated we do know and we have
acknowledged in this room that there have been incidents involving
electrocution in pools and Malls where there have fountains, miniature golf
courses, which happened not so long ago, we need to take whatever steps we can
to remind people of the importance of electricity and water are a dangerous
combination. He further stated he had
heard many times during this meeting that if there is proper installation there
should not be a problem. Mr. Sloan said
that things are not always properly installed and there are mitigating factors
that happen downstream of the installation like five houses down the street or
corrosion on a dock or a transformer so that should not alone be a reason if it
is properly installed it should be fine, if the ground fault interrupters works
it should be fine because things can fail and this is why precautions are
made. Mr. Sloan again thanked the TACs
and stated he would like to speak again later on Phase II and stated he felt
they needed to walk out of this meeting today with some constructiveness and
that creates education awareness.
Mr. Batts asked Mr. Sloan for
verification of the type of pool lights in his pool, and also gave his
condolences for the loss of his son.
Mr. Sloan said as he had stated
before he had low voltage lighting in his pool.
He also stated that this crusade is much bigger than his own situation.
Mr. Batts confirmed that Mr.
Sloan’s pool lights were not on during the time of the accident.
Mr. Sloan stated there was a
failure of a transformer with low voltage lighting with high voltage
electricity energized the pool lights.
He stated he has to limit what he says again due to legal litigation but
it was high voltage that entered the pool lights and gave an
details of how the shock occurred and hit his son and his friend and the visual
effects.
Jennifer Hatfield, Florida Swimming
Pool Association provided her perspective of the low voltage lighting issue and
wanted the group to know that the Phase II would be the higher target and most
important. She also advised that the
group needs to look at both commercial in addition to the residential and
provided reasons and background for the requests.
There was additional discussion
among the TACs including questions from the group to Mr. Sloan and Mr. Holland.
Mr. Blair asked for ranking of
the two options that have been proposed at this time.
Option A: Require low voltage lighting in residential
pools for new pools (using Miami-Dade requirements)
Swimming
Pool TAC: (6-3) 67%
Acceptable
5 votes, Minor Reservations 1 vote, Major Reservations 1 vote, Not
Acceptable 2 votes
Concurrent
Swimming Pool and Electrical TAC Meeting
October
14, 2015
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5
Phase I
– Low Voltage Lighting in Residential Pools for New Construction (cont.):
Electrical
TAC: (5-4) 56%
Acceptable
4 votes, Minor Reservations 1 vote, Major Reservations 1 vote, Not
Acceptable 3 votes
Option
B: Maintain NEC requirements for new
residential pools
Swimming
Pool TAC: (7-2) 78%
Acceptable
6 votes, Minor Reservations 1 vote, Major Reservations 1 vote, Not
Acceptable 1 votes
Electrical
TAC: (5-4) 56%
Acceptable
4 votes, Minor Reservations 1 vote, Major Reservations 3 vote, Not
Acceptable 1 votes
Jim Richmond advised the
Committee Members of the Office of Communications and the role of the
department with Media and if they are approached by the media present at the
meeting today.
Break – 10 minutes
Mr. Blair called the meeting back
to order. At this time Mr. Blair
provided a full explanation of the ranking process and how these
recommendations are formulated to be sent to the Commission for consideration. He also stated there was an additional option
for discussion and ranking.
Mr. Burdick proposed a third
option under Phase I for energy conservation purposes and provided background
and his opinion of the need for the option.
Discussion followed among both
TAC groups prior to ranking the third option.
Option
C: Require low voltage lighting in
residential pools for new construction (Miami-Dade requirements) for energy
conservation purposes.
Swimming
Pool TAC: (7-2) 78%
Acceptable
5 votes, Minor Reservations 2 vote, Major Reservations 1 vote, Not
Acceptable 1 votes
Electrical
TAC: (6-3) 67%
Acceptable
2 votes, Minor Reservations 4 vote, Major Reservations 0 vote, Not
Acceptable 3 votes
Concurrent
Swimming Pool and Electrical TAC Meeting
October
14, 2015
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6
Phase I
- Low Voltage Lighting in Residential Pools for New Construction (cont.):
Mr. Madani provided information
on the requirements in the Building Code for existing pools. He did advise that the Commission does not
have any authority to mandate requirements on existing pools.
Discussion followed among the
members. There were questions as to the
reasoning for Phase II.
Mr. Blair advised that this was
discussed on the conference call and the need to discuss the bonding, grounding
and retro fitting.
Mr. Madani stated his
understanding from the call was this section was to develop education on these
matters.
Discussion followed among the
members on retrofitting on existing pools.
Discussion led to more education on existing pools.
Mr. Blair provided of summary of
the votes on Option B and C and the possible need to revise the ranking if
there is support for a possible Option D regarding retrofitting.
A new Option D was proposed to be ranked.
Ms. Hammonds brought up the
Sunshine Law during breaks or lunch.
Mr. Holland spoke on the
electrical technical issues with the electrical equipment of pools. He stated this group should shift to the
other areas of the pool installation not excluding electrical but to be sure to
cover grounding.
Ms. Hatfield spoke further on the
educational aspect of pool safety with existing pools as well as new pools.
The meeting took a break for
lunch at 12:15 pm.
Mr. Blair called the meeting back
to order at 1:15 pm and provided a summary of the actions thus far with the two
TAC groups.
Further discussion took place on
ground fault and education.
Concurrent
Swimming Pool and Electrical TAC Meeting
October
14, 2015
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7
Phase
II – 2. Grounding
Mr. Sloan stated two companies
have approached him and he has installed devices in his pool that detect the
presence of electricity in the water. He
said one is called shock alert and the other is called shock alarm. Mr. Sloan provided detail on how these
devices operate and their function in the pool.
He stated he was not sure if this could be brought up or mandated. Mr. Sloan advised that these are very inexpensive
devices and also easy to install and described how they function in the
pool. He said these devices were
developed after there were electrocutions on lakes. Mr. Sloan stated he would like to see if
these devices could be introduced as an option.
Ms. Hatfield stated that there
should be more investigation of the use of GFCI on everything. She said she really feels that they need more
information.
There was additional discussion
among the Committee Members.
Option
A: Require that all electrical circuits
feeding equipment that could potentially energize a pool have GFCI protection
for new residential and commercial swimming pools (the goal is to fill in any
gaps in the current Code).
Swimming
Pool TAC: (9-0) 100%
Acceptable
4 votes, Minor Reservations 5 vote, Major Reservations 0 vote, Not
Acceptable 0 votes
Electrical
TAC: (9-0) 100%
Acceptable
5 votes, Minor Reservations 4 vote, Major Reservations 0 vote, Not
Acceptable 0 votes
Phase I
– Low Voltage Lighting in Residential Pools for New Construction (cont.):
Option
D: Require
LED pool lights with plastic niches or without niches in new construction.
Swimming
Pool TAC: (3-6) 33%
Acceptable
2 votes, Minor Reservations 1 vote, Major Reservations 3 vote, Not
Acceptable 3 votes
Electrical
TAC: (2-7) 22%
Acceptable
1 votes, Minor Reservations 1 vote, Major Reservations 4 vote, Not
Acceptable 3 votes
Mr. Blair asked if the TACs would
like to re-rank Option B under Phase I.
Swimming Pool TAC requested to
re-rank Option B under Phase I.
Option B: Maintain NEC
requirements for new residential pools. Re-Ranking:
Swimming
Pool TAC: (6-3) 67%
Acceptable
5 votes, Minor Reservations 1 vote, Major Reservations 1 vote, Not
Acceptable 2 votes
Concurrent
Swimming Pool and Electrical TAC Meeting
October
14, 2015
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8
Mr.
Blair asked if the TACs would like to re-rank any other Options.
The
Swimming Pool and Electrical TAC requested to re-rank Option C.
Mr.
Sloan stated that he wanted the group to be aware that it was made very clear
to his family that had the light shell and the niche been made of plastic that
would not have conducted electricity and the failure with the short and this
would not have happened. He said he was
a little bit surprised that the option was dismissed as this was a very large
part of their case as the plastic would not have conducted electricity, the
light shell was what was corroding and that was what was electrified not the
actual bulb and assembly, the can and the ring is what electrified.
Option C: Require low voltage lighting in
residential pools for new construction (Miami-Dade requirements) for energy
conservation purposes. Re-Ranking
Swimming
Pool TAC: (4-5) 44%
Acceptable
2 votes, Minor Reservations 2 vote, Major Reservations 2 vote, Not
Acceptable 3 votes
Electrical
TAC: (5-4) 33%
Acceptable
3 votes, Minor Reservations 2 vote, Major Reservations 1 vote, Not
Acceptable 3 votes
Mr.
Wilkes proposed and Option E to include monitoring devices for pool alert
safety.
Option E: All residential pools shall meet
the requirements of code and shall be require a monitoring device to detect
stray currents in the water.
Mr.
Sloan described the type of monitoring system he has installed on his pool and
how they work.
Swimming
Pool TAC: (2-7) 22%
Acceptable
0 votes, Minor Reservations 2 vote, Major Reservations 5 vote, Not
Acceptable 2 votes
Electrical
TAC: (3-6) 33%
Acceptable
1 votes, Minor Reservations 2 vote, Major Reservations 6 vote, Not
Acceptable 0 votes
Phase
II - 3. Retrofitting of Existing Pools:
Discussion continued among the
Committee Members on retrofitting, and GFCI.
Option
B: Require existing commercial and residential swimming pools to have GFCI protection
for replacement pool pump motors, if not already in place; to provide GFCI protection
for the replacement of 120 volt pool lights when they are replaced; and, as
part of the close out inspection ensuring that the existing bonding system is
complete and terminated properly.
Concurrent
Swimming Pool and Electrical TAC Meeting
October
14, 2015
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Phase
II - 3. Retrofitting of Existing Pools (cont.):
Swimming
Pool TAC: (5-3) 63%
Acceptable
2 votes, Minor Reservations 3 vote, Major Reservations 3 vote, Not
Acceptable 0 votes
Electrical
TAC: (6-2) 75%
Acceptable
4 votes, Minor Reservations 2 vote, Major Reservations 2 vote, Not
Acceptable 0 votes
Phase
II – 4. Education Initiatives for Contractors and Consumers:
There was detailed discussion
among the TACs regarding education and methods of providing education
information.
Mr. Sloan provided his full
support for education and the benefit for all families and owners. He gave detail of how this has provided data
that has been of great benefit in Miami-Dade and Broward Counties.
Option
A: Initiate a comprehensive educational effort to ensure there is a
consistent message to enhance pool electrical safety issues for existing and
new pools by working with existing resources including educational providers
and associations. The effort should include defining the problems, identifying
solutions and communicating a consistent message to stakeholders (contractors,
consumers, home inspectors, pool maintenance providers, etc.) through training courses,
flyers, brochures, websites, etc. Key issues for education messaging include
lighting, bonding, grounding, GFCI, maintenance of existing pools, and
monitoring devices to detect stray currents in the pool water, etc.
Swimming
Pool TAC: (9-0) 100%
Acceptable
9 votes, Minor Reservations 0 vote, Major Reservations 0 vote, Not
Acceptable 0 votes
Electrical
TAC: (8-0) 100%
Acceptable
8 votes, Minor Reservations 0 vote, Major Reservations 0 vote, Not
Acceptable 0 votes
Mr. Blair provided additional
time for discussion among the public. He
advised that the TACs will now make a motion for the actions to be presented to
the Commission.
Mr. Batts entered a motion for
the Swimming Pool TAC to recommend the Commission approve the TACs package of
consensus recommendations. Mr. Flanagan
seconded the motion. The motion passed
unanimously with a vote of 8 to 0.
Mr. Flanagan entered a motion for
the Electrical TAC to recommend the Commission approve the TACs package of
consensus recommendations. Mr. Mitchell
seconded the motion. The motion passed
unanimously with a vote of 9 to 0
Concurrent
Swimming Pool and Electrical TAC Meeting
October
14, 2015
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10
A quorum was determined for the
Swimming Pool TAC voted unanimously, 8-0 in favor, to adjourn the meeting at
3:30 pm on Wednesday, October 14, 2015.
A quorum was determined for the
Electrical TAC voted unanimously, 8-0 in favor, to adjourn the meeting at 3:30
pm on Wednesday, October 14, 2015.