LJ LONG

Just some thoughts,allow me to give a brief,overly simplified look at how electricty works. First lets imagine electrical energy as a entity, when electrical power is generated it has a sole purpose for being, that is to find it's way back to ground . In a home ground and nuetral are the same thing. So the electrical entity will do whatever it must to return home(finding ground) this is how we make electrical energy work for us, we provide a path home but we make it work for us along the way.The important thing to remember is that electricity is also very lazy and will always take the easiest path to get back home. So if the only path provided is say through some light bulbs or whatever it will go that way but if at the same time you give it an easier path rest assured it will find it. That's called a short circuit which is most always made obvious by the loud bang and smoke.So how does all this relate to your question? Simple really, in a resedential electrical service it will consist of three wires, two insulated conductors and one bare conductor. The two insulated ones each have 120 volts of potential on them when read back to ground or 240 volts between them. Remember the bare wire is the ground that power is searching for so if you were to blast the tape or insulation off one of them chances are you may have just given it that easy way out I was refering to. But if the lazy electricity see's an easy way to ground thru your wand,your hand,arm ,body ,leg ,foot rest assured it will take that way and you will be having a bad day! To summerize ,obviously you will want to be careful around this stuff but typically you dont have to worry about getting things wet, the biggest thing would be just don't go blasting with high pressure and you will be ok, all electrical equipment mounted outdoors is rated for raintite but that does not mean its rated for blasting under pressure .Just be careful and you will be allright.I always try to let my soap do all the work in these touchy areas then just follow up with a quick low pressure rinse. Hope my rambleing helps in some way.

Hey sparky, just reading about your recent miscalculation, sorry but I couldn't help but laugh. A couple of things to keep in mind though when wiring your pump try to keep the wire length as short as possible and be sure to use big enough wire to do the job. I would suggest at minimum a #12 copper wire provided the length is not to long. Also if a fuse holder is not installed in the 12 volt wiring be sure to add one. A fuse rating of 1.5 times full load current should be ok. check the name plate for ratings. Good luck.

HI guys, never posted anything before but after reading Ryans reply I felt compelled to do so. In my spare time I also work as a union electrician (LU58) so I picked up on a common misconception by alot of people. To reduce the current flow as Ryan suggests you would actually want a cord with a heavier conductors such as a #12 or even better a #10. Cords with "tiny" wires #14,#16 actually restrict current flow.The best way to understand electricity and how it works for you is to use what I refer to as my "plumbing theory" of electricity.Voltage is pressure, Current is flow, the size of the wire or conductor is the same as the size pipe the the flow travels thru. So having said that its easier to understand that to do a given amount of work you are better off with larger pipes, it allows more flow without having to increase pressure. This is why the the lower the voltage the higher the the current will be to do the same amount of work. Such as 12V vs. 120v, to perform the same task the 12v pump would require approx. 10 times the current flow as the 120v pump and so on. Forgive me for rambling but the bottom line is as far as cords go for any application bigger is better.