I'm having my pool remodeled. The brass conduit from the niche comes
out and straight up to where the old, round, flush junction box was in
the concrete. Most of the conduit is in concrete and cannot be bent.

See ASCII diagram below.

It is no long permitted to have a junction box flush in the concrete,
but the code is unclear about access panels for the purpose of pulling
wire.

(http://www.thermocraftonline.com/UL%20Fittings.htm)

The electrician attached a PVC Type LB access fitting to the brass
conduit from the old light, since there would be no way to run the new
wire without it. This panel is flush with where the new concrete will
be. There will be no junctions inside, it's only to have a way to
route the new light's cable.

There will be a number 8 copper ground wire run from a clamp on the
old brass conduit over to the ground connection on the junction box.
There is no way to run the ground wire inside the PVC to the junction
box since there is no entry point for the ground wire from the clamp
on the PVC pipe. I talked to a pool remodeling company (that sold the
junction box) and they said that there is no real way to be totally
code compliant, with 680/25, on a remodel because of the inability to
run a ground wire inside the conduit, so they always run it outside,
and the Thermocraft junction box has a provision for connecting the
ground wire outside (http://www.thermocraftonline.com/Weatherproof.htm)


So the questions:

1. How hard is it to completely replace the niche, with one where the
conduit can come out of the back and run straight underground to the
new junction box, rather than use an access panel. They are
replastering the pool (Pebbletec) anyway.

2. Should the access panel be filled with potting compound once the
pool wire is run. The water will not run up that high due to the
access panel being higher than the water level. But what is the issue
with that anyway, as long as there are no connections? They didn't
like junction boxes at the deck level because water could get into it
and there were splices inside, but now there are no splices inside.
Obviously water will fill the conduit, brass or PVC, below the pool
water level, but the pool light wiring is designed for this.

3. Should the access panel be covered with concrete (the pool light
could not be completely replaced in the future.

4. The old light was 12 volt light. The new light is 120 volt. I read
somewhere that the low voltage lights were dry-niche, but I don't
think mine was.


New ___
Junction|___|
____ Box |
Pool | |__| Access Panel PVC |
| | \ /
|| | | \PVC /PVC
Light ||____| \________________________/
Brass PVC