Is this normal??

[Searcher]

Thanks a lot poconos..I looked on the sungrabber booklet for troubleshooting & it says I would need a bypass valve if my pump was 1hp. I really thought the 1.5 hp pump would have been strong enough. I will put a bypass valve on, but in the meantime am I hurting my pump..?

As you can tell I am not very pool savy...

Your pump motor is over sized for your application; it is TOO STRONG. Plumb the panel, as recommended, so that some water passes through the panel and the majority returns to the pool; parallel and NOT in series. You are getting so much pressure for that simple reason, an oversized motor. A smaller motor would move just as much water with much less strain on your system PLUS it would save you money.

To look at it another way, if you would put a 2 HP motor in place of the 1.5, you would not move any more water but you would raise the pressure considerably more.

No matter what size motor, the panel must be piped as noted. Your documentation seems to not worth the paper it is printed on.

The only thing that should be oversized on a pool is the filter.

Are you hurting your motor? Yes if you consider that I am running a dual speed motor, pushing 25,000 gallons on low speed "1/6th HP" and showing 2 pounds of pressure through an S 200 sand filter that holds 200 pounds of sand.