Pool-newb

It was sucking air, the impeller had some slight damage, the bearings were making noise, it was expensive to run and the thing was loud so I figured it was time to replace the pump. I had done a lot of searching trying to determine the best option for my needs and while I was successful, I think more information could have helped my decision a bit. I have about 10,000 gals (12x24x4-6ft) and the old pump was a Hayward 1 HP Super Pump. Not sure of the age - I think that model is still available but nothing in the entire house had been taken care of over the last 6 years. (before I bought it) I believe that 1 HP for my little pond may have been overkill but a stop at the local pool store let me know that an identical replacement would cost $408 (me installing it, of course). First thing I looked for was which manufacturers exist out there. I found Hayward Pentair and Jandy. There are other smaller manufacturers which may or may not be better but the availability of parts and price competition kept me to these three manufacturers. Then I had to decide what size I needed. Based on the one HP I had now - it was not very strong - I figured I'd have at least that much, and I am planning to add a heater and/or solar system so I wanted to keep my options open so I was looking for 1 to 1.5 hp. Looking at the options out there i found that there are dual speed and variable speed pumps. My favorite of all of the pumps would have been the Pentair Intelliflow (variable speed) but budget constraints and the size of my pool sort of killed that. The only other variable speed pumps from these three manufacturers seemed to be either 3 phase or huge pumps, not appropriate for my use so I decided on a dual speed pump. After looking at all of the options I decided on Hayward. While I know I didn't get accurate information from all of the websites (Jandy even had just plain wrong power consumption numbers in at least one case, and nothing said that the Hayward wanted such large diameter pipes), I figured using the largest manufacturer would be ok, and the pump specs, ease of install and functions (I really like the lid, it seals much better than the square SP pumps lids) sort of clinched the deal. My old plumbing was 1.5" and while I wanted to replace the above-ground part, I didn't want a pump requiring large piping. I finally decided on the Hayward Northstar 1.5 HP dual speed. After another long google session I found the cheapest price from a reputable website, and got it within about 3 days. Well, I was juuuussst a bit suprised. That thing is way bigger than the old pump. But what the heck, I'm male, and bigger is always better, right? Oh yeah, and the 1.2" pipes? Right there on the front cover of the instruction manual (where I actually read it BEFORE I installed the pump) was clearly stated that 2" plumbing is minimum, 2.5" preferred. Ripped out all the old above ground plumbing, installed 2" pipes and valves, glued everything togther (took about a day and a half), filled it with water and started it up. Nothing. Pump was running but no water flow - oops, put the filter valve in the correct position ... And everything works. One teensy tiny leak from the filter connection which dries before it can run down the filter to the ground so I'm happy. I installed a manual switch to move between hi and lo speeds and have had a few day to experiment with it. At high speed it is a little quieter than my old pump, at low speed I can't even hear it over the A/C units in the neighborhood. One problem I have is cavatation. I have two suction lines and three returns. At high speed the pump is powerful enough to suck any air through the pump, and there are no bubbles visible under the glass window. These bubbles apparently go into the filter valve and make some of the noise I have. After switching to low speed, the bubble noise in the filter goes away but very slowly bubbles start to collect in the pump. Given long enough - between 8 and 16 hours of running, the bubble expands and fills the entire strainer basket area. Gadget guy that I am, I installed quick releases and ball valves everywhere, so I can adjust the individual restrictions. I find that I can reduce the bubbles by restricting the pressure side just a little, but I am loathe to add more head to the system. I am currently using the original mechanical once-on/once-off timer, but one option I am contemplating is to put in a dual timer that runs the pump at high speed for a few minutes each day to clear the air, then switches back to low speed to run the 8 hour filter cycle - which, btw, has more flow but much less pressure at the filter than the original 1 HP pump (maybe because of the increase in plumbing diameter?) I am also planning to sometime get an ammeter and measure the current draw at different vale settings. Maybe restricting the pressure side will stress the pump less. Comments anyone out there? Maybe I should just blog this ...

Yeah - thats what I just going to say I knew it worked pretty much like that, but thanks Richard for the detailed post. I gotta mention here though that I practically burned up a leaf blower trying to figure out a good method to areate. The leaf blower had more volume but lower pressure and it was very sensitive to how deep the output hose was in the water. The shop vac, on the other hand, worked well. It was also sensitive to the water depth but it could go much deeper and didn't seem to stress nearly as much when I kept it at the lowest usable depth. It is also important to make sure the hose and the filter in the vacuum are clean - it could get messy blowing all that gunk into the pool. And it turns out that the sand and AlkUp I bought from the nice lady at the pool store were really usable after all. After emptying the AlkUp bucket I filled it with some of the old sand out of the filter, added some water and it weighted the vacuum hose in the shallow end perfectly. Btw, I did get that pump in, and replaced all the plumbing from the ground up. It was an adventure so watch for a post about it in the next few days.

Hey Jeff I was able to lower my TA (total alkalinity) down after doing a lot of googling. Small pool so it didn't take too long but it was kind of funny in a way. The goal is to lower the PH and then areate the pool. I lowered the pH with muriatic acid then used my shop vac (the same one I used to suction the sand out of the filter) connected to the blower side, and weighted the hose just low enough into the pool that the back pressure wouldn't stop it. Wasn't really fast but it did work - several hours of running the vacuum. Had a great spa effect at the same time. The next question was why the pool got to the high TA anyway. Beginner that I was (three months ago now) and mud pond that it had become after a year off pump and 6 years of no care, the nice lady at the pool store sold me the chlorine tabs and the alk up and all kinds of other expensive stuff to throw in there. But the tabs are acidic and that drops my pH. Raising the pH also raises the TA. So now I use liquid chlorine bleach which raises the pH - a lot less than the tabs lower it, and very small, seldom doses of muriatic acid to keep the pH in range. I'll probably eventually have to add some alkalinity because my pump is sucking air and blowing lots of bubbles into the water. I ordered a new pump yesterday.