Electric Bill My Wife Will Be Okay

[PDub]

This is our first year as pool owners. We were ready for the cost of chemicals etc... but didn't include the hospital cost of bringing my wife back to life when we got our first electric bill.

On the serious side we were surprised. We have way more pump and filter than pool and we left the timer setting as what the pool installer left us with. He has the timers running the pump 12 hours 7:00 am to 7:00 am. If my math is right we are cycling the pool 8 to 10 times a day. The pool cleaner is running 4 hours a day 10:00 am to 2:00 pm. It's pretty dang clean I must add and sparkles. So I'm looking at backing down without losing the shine. I forgot to add to my sig that we are a 15 x 30 running salt.

Any suggestions on the amount of time we should be running the pump and cleaner. My math says 4 hours but I'm worried. We are looking at backing it to 8 hours a day and when we have swimmers.

[Mark]

A 1 1/2 HP Whisperflo will probably be somewhere between 80 and 100 GPM depending on your plumbing. At 90 GPM, that is about a 2.5 hour turnover. Most pools require less than 2 turnovers and hardly ever more than 3 so 8 hours should be more than enough and you could probably get away with 4-6 hours.

I have a 1 HP full rated pump and run 6 hours/day in the summer and that keeps the pool pretty clean. My turnover is about 4 hours so I am running at 1.5 turnovers per day. So you could probably go down to 4 hours/day but I would try 8 first.

[PDub]

Thanks Mark, your figures are matching mine. I'm also trying to find a good time of day. During the week the pool sits until we get home from work and so most of the use is in the evening. On a weekend the pool gets used mostly afternoon and evening. I'm thinking that maybe I should split the time to morning with cleaning and then back on around 5ish unless it’s the weekend. I’m also wondering how this is going to effect my salt generator production. Thanks for the reply.

[ANG]

Rule of thumb when it comes to running the pump is... 1 hour for every 10 degrees air temp. So if you live in a climate where the Avg. air temp is 80 degrees, then 8 hours. One thing to remember is, if you run only 4 hours a day and have an inline chlorinator then the pool is only getting chlorinated for that 4 hours which generally isn't enough thru the summer.

[PDub]

I'm with you and was talking with my wife at lunch about the SWG and right now my chem numbers are right on. I hate to mess that up and cost more $$. Thanks for your reply.

[Mark]

It is pretty easy to adjust the chlorine levels for whatever run time you choose. If you go from 12 hours to 8 hours run time, the SWG setting needs to increase by 12/8 or 50% increase.

While it is beneficial to add chlorine during the entire day, it is not necessary. As long as you maintain the minimum FC over the entire day and night, it really doesn't matter when you introduce it. In fact, many people run their pumps at night because it is cheaper electricity (time of day billing) so they add enough chlorine over the night to hold them over until the next night's run. There are pros and cons to running at night or day but you can make it work either way.

[Strannik]

I'm with you and was talking with my wife at lunch about the SWG and right now my chem numbers are right on. I hate to mess that up and cost more $$. Thanks for your reply.

If you are already running it at 100% there isn't much room for reduction. You either need to get yourself a bigger SWG or a smaller pump.

If you aren't at 100% - bump it up to 100 and reduce running time.