Questions about pump and filter

[aylad]

In a word...yes. You probably are okay with the filter you have, but a 1.5 HP pump is way too big for your pool. However, with it running in low speed, it may not be bad--Pooldoc, Mark, or one of the other equipment gurus should be able to better advise you there. I just know that my pool is roughly 25K gallons, I have a 300 pound sand filter and a 1 HP pump and it's plenty big enough.

Janet

[tim665214]

I am concerned about the low pressure on my sand filter. When running on low it is about 2.5 psi. When I turn my pump on high it is around 11 psi.
I am getting good flow back through my return jet. Is it possible that not enough sand was put in my filter when it was installed? It is a 22" filter, and the installers put 150 lbs of sand.

Is there anything I can mess up by taking the valve off the top and looking into the filter to see how much sand is there? If I do, how high should the sand be?

Thanks

Tim

[AnnaK]

On a 2-speed pump you read the pump pressure at the high setting. My clean pressure is 15 PSI. The gauge shows 5 PSI on the low setting always, no matter how clean or dirty my sand filter may be.

With the pump OFF it is normal to get some water flowing out the waste line when the multi-port valve is set to backwash.

I Googled "Waterway 22" sand filter", got many hits, and learned that this filter requires 150# of sand, so it sounds like your installers were right on.

[TomC]

Tim, I think that what is a normal pressure varies considerably between pools. In my set up, when I run the pump on low, which is 99% of the time, my pressure guage reads zero. On high, it reads about 8 psi, when the filter is clean. I really don't worry about the low psi reading because the water from the returns is quite powerful.

Tom

[AnnaK]

Good point, Tom, and it reminded me of something I had meant to include in my previous comments: the PSI number is also related to the sensitivity of the gauge.

In prior years I used 0 - 60 PSI gauges. The pump pressure on low was near 0 and 8 PSI on high. This year I bought a 0 - 30 PSI gauge and get 5 PSI on low and 15 PSI on high. What's important to me isn't so much the number as the consistency over time of the pressure reading at the different pump speed settings, just as I look for consistency in my water chemistry numbers. A variation is easily noted and acts as an alert that something might need my attention.