Questions about pump and filter

[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.