Pumps to big I think...

[bell7272]

We had our new central FL, 15 X 30, 3-5 1/2 deep, IG 12K G pool finished last year. Now I think the builder installed way to large a pump on the system and I might want to change it out to save $$ on the electric bill. Pool and pump /filter are all on level ground, same height.

Spec's:

Hayward Super II 2.5 HP
Hayward DE Filter 6020
2 main Drains -60 feet to pump
1 skimmer - 50 feet to pump
1 Rock waterfall (30 inches high) - 75 feet to pump
1 36 inch shear decent fall. 50 feet to pump
4 returns
pumping is 2 inch (I think)

(I paced off to pump where the pipe/plumbing was laid originally for items. Not sure if that's how you do it.)


When pool company was adjusting all the Jandy auto controls for waterfalls, I remember they had to restrict flow rates to keep water from shooting out.

I usually run pump only 3 hours in winter and 6 hours in pool season. 50% morning and 50% afternoon and that seems to work well, plus weekends probably 8 -10 hours since waterfalls are running, pool use, etc.

Seems to me that I could down size to a lot smaller pump and run it longer while saving $$ on electricity.

What about 2 speed pumps???? Builder talked me out of it saying they were unreliable. Is this true.

Also, we are probably going to put solar in next year on the roof of a single story house.

Any comments, ideas on pump size, brands to consider, etc would be helpful.

Thanks and regards from Florida.

[mas985]

Most likely, the reason the PB put in the large pump was for the water falls since they need quite a bit of flow rates. So you may still need that size but a 2 speed would help a bit on energy costs.

I don't have a two speed but many on this forum do and have not complained about reliability so I don't think that should be an issue. Technically, there is no reason why a 2 speed should be less reliable than a 1 speed. A 2 speed has additional set of windings for low speed and I would think that low speed is not as hard on the bearings as high speed so in some cases it may actually last longer.

Solar is usually not an issue with 2 speed pumps as long as you can prime the panels at high speed. Most automatic controllers have this priming feature with solar so they should take care of it but you might want to double check to see if the feature exists.

If you don't have a controller that will prime the panels at high speed, then you must make sure the pump at low speed has enough head to prime the panels. For a one story house, the pump may need at least 20-25 feet of head to push the water to the top of the panels and fully close the vacuum release valve in the panel. If you know the height to the very top of the roof, add 5-10 feet to that and that should be enough total head for everything. However, most 2 speed pumps at low speed will come up short of this requirement.