Pump run-time in the Central-Texas winter?

I'm not running the pumps (Main and Polaris booster) very much these days, mostly just to get a few leaves off the bottom every other day or so. Also on the few nights where the temperature drops into the twenties for a few hours. The water is clear and is probably just above freezing - it hurts to put my hands in the skimmer to remove the basket. Chlorine demand is way low.

For the next two months I'm thinking I can go at least three days between running the pumps for a while, other than the freeze-protection runs. As long as the water is staying clear, is there a reason to keep running the pumps every day or two?

As far as I know, the only reasons to have circulation of water are:

1) To distribute chlorine (and other chemicals) evenly to prevent low concentrations in parts of the pool (usually caused by chlorine getting used up by algae trying to grow in such regions) so that algae growth is prevented.

2) To move large objects (e.g. leaves) to the skimmer for easy collection.

3) To filter the water to remove suspended particles (i.e. to prevent cloudiness).

4) To prevent freezing of the water, mostly in pipes (only during freezing weather, of course).

With extremely low temperatures and a lack of strong sunlight, the risk of algae growth is very, very low. I don't know if there is an easy way to tell how much circulation is good enough except to see if algae starts to develop. Even if it does, its growth would be so slow as to be easy to see and remove with more chlorine. It seems to me that it's just an experiment for your pool, but that the risk is low.

My own pool only gets down to around 50F this time of year so I still have my pump running every day, though only for 2 hours. This is probably overkill, especially since the pool has an opaque cover, but it's what I'm comfortable with.

Richard

Thanks Richard,

That's what I figured. This is our first year (since April 2006) with our first pool so we're still learning how to manage it under the various weather conditions. The previous owner gave us a quick course on the pool and actually ran the pumps more in the winter. It turns out that pretty much everything else he said about the pool was wrong, so this is just more of the same.

Hi Tom,
I'm really interested in your post. I'm in north TX and am in my first winter with an open, uncovered and unheated pool. I've probably been too hesitant to drop my pump time but would LOVE to have the energy savings :D as long as I don't develop algae. Currently, I'm running 6 hours per day in 2 sessions (2+4) plus additional time when the freeze protection kicks in. My pool temp was 46 this AM and has been in the mid-40's most of December, with a low of 40 and a high of 51. Pool is in full winter sun, super clear, and with a chlorine demand running 0-1.0/day (SWCG off due to water being too cold).

When you do run your pumps for circulation purposes, how long are you running them?

Thanks for the help.

Hi Sandy,

I'm running it just enough to keep it looking nice since it's in full view out the back patio doors. A couple of hours usually takes care of it, plus a little time with the net. I'm going to experiment with leaving it off as long as possible and see what happens. I haven't really measured the water temperature, so it's probably closer to yours since it's also uncovered and unheated.

I go to www.weather.com and look at the 24 hour forecast to see when the temperature is going to drop into the twenties, and if it's late at night I'll set the timers accordingly.

It has low CYA - probably around 20ppm by now, so I can run relatively low chlorine, usually around 2ppm. I use bleach and then a little muriatic acid to control pH.

Thanks for the info, Tom. Like you, our pool is very visible from the house which entered into our decision to keep it open for the winter.

Since reading your first post, we've had temps in the 20's overnight, so the freeze protection mechanism kicked in automatically. That's great, but it meant that we had a lot of time running the pump. So, I've been manually turning off the "normal" run times. I guess I need to do some experimenting as well, since it appears I could do just as well with a lot less regularly scheduled pump time in the winter.

Really glad you posted your initial question.

Well, it's been three days now and it looks fine to me. Since my regular maintenance includes adding muriatic acid on Wednesdays and Saturdays, I think I'll run the pumps only on those days for a while, except for freeze-protection runs.

The pool did fine with a Saturday/Wednesday only to run the pumps. We're about to have a week or more of nasty weather with lows in the low 20's and daytime highs in the mid to upper 30's, so not really a hard freeze. To be safe I took the drain plugs out of the pumps, opened the pump basket and set the multi-port valve to an intermediate setting so it's open to air. Today I just dribbled some bleach around the edge and used the leafnet to stir the water. I'm betting this will work for several weeks.

Now that our ice storm has melted, I put the plugs back in and turned the pumps on for a while to get the leaves out of the water. All working fine and very little need to add chlorine or acid. The storms tend to blow through here about once a week for the next several weeks, so taking the plugs out that often isn't really a chore. I discovered they are plastic and hold their seal even if finger tight, at least for a while.

Dunno if anyone is still reading, but I let it go two weeks without a pump run, and other than a collection of small debris on the bottom the pool did fine. I've run it for a few hours over the last couple of days just to clean up a bit, but I'm pretty sure I could have let it go indefinitely until spring arrives. Our electric bill has dropped significantly and I'm going to turn back the summer runtime too.

EDIT: My recent maintenance consisted of adding a little muriatic acid and bleach twice a week (amount based on either testing or prior experience) and then using a leaf net to clean the water surface and to stir the water.

Hi - for what it's worth, I live the the Dallas-area, and I've been running my pool 1.5 hours everyday, and that seems to be enough to keep the water sparkling. I did throw in about 1/3 gallon of bleach the other day (11k gallon pool), just in case, as my FC was down to 0.5 ppm.

Tom/aquarium...yes, I'm still reading and interested to see how your experiments are coming along.

After the initial postings, I turned off my scheduled times and let the pool go with just the freeze protection, since it was coming on for parts of almost every night anyway. Recently, I broke down and put on 2 hours of run time during the part of the day I was home so I could admire the waterfall. :)

The pool water temp actually got up to 50 degrees yesterday, but a front came through and I think it'll be back to the 40's for the foreseeable future.

Joelq...good to hear other pools can survive with reduced pump time, too.