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I disconnected my hot tub power today as we prepare to dispose of it. The wiring (6 AWG, on a 50 amp breaker) goes through underground conduit underneath a walkway, so while I figure out what to do with the wiring, I wanted to cap it somehow to both prevent water from getting inside the conduit and also perhaps using it for outdoor receptacles or lighting in the future (who knows).

Short term, I wire capped it and wrapped it in electrical tape until the hot tub is disposed of and I have better access to everything, but I'm looking for something safe and semi-permanent. I think I'm looking for something like this: https://www.amazon.com/MAKERELE-Plastic-Waterproof-Adjustable-Protectors/dp/B094ZF2Z3T/ but the problem is that I don't know if that's a cap or not because there are no images of the other side.

What is the best way to handle this? I have the romex connector still and was thinking there is something I can screw on top as a more permanent cap, but I walked around Lowes and didn't see anything that seemed like what I was looking for.

Current wiring (after capping, before wrapping the conduit hole in electrical tape as well): https://ibb.co/ph8kZ5Q

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  • The Amazon thing is a gland, it does not have a cap. Its meant to seal entry holes for wires or cables, into an enclosure.
    – Rohit Gupta
    Apr 1 at 23:49
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    A 50 amp breaker should be limited to high power power uses, like hot tubs, EV chargers, welders. For lights/regular outdoor receptacles will need to go down to 20 amp breaker.
    – crip659
    Apr 1 at 23:49
  • Thanks for that detail. If I drop to a 20 amp breaker, can I still use the 6 AWG or do I need to change to a more proper gauge for the breaker size?
    – Sage
    Apr 2 at 0:12
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    If you can get the wire to fit the 20A breaker and receptacle (12AWG pigtails might be needed), then it's technically acceptable to oversize wire. Assuming the tub was 240v, you might have a spare breaker space that would need a cover on the panel. If you were paranoid, you'd take the hot wires out of the 50A breakers, cap the wires and push them off to the side of the panel.
    – Aloysius Defenestrate
    Apr 2 at 2:20

1 Answer 1

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Put the wires into a weatherproof box like this and use a cover like this.

Then when you are ready to add an outlet or splice in more wire for another feature, you are ready.

The protectors you saw are not full caps, they are to weatherproof cable going through them.

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  • Thank you, this would work perfectly once the tub is removed.
    – Sage
    Apr 2 at 0:27
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    Except you might want to get matching products, not one Bell sold by Amazon and not 1 cheap Cheese from 3rd party seller with randomized name, which is really just 1 dodgy seller with 10,000 fake identities. . Found out why they did that, by the way... so they don't accidentally use a real company name by mistake.
    – Harper - Reinstate Monica
    Apr 2 at 4:27

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