How Long Should I Run my Pool Pump and When is the Best Time to Run it?
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- Опубліковано 27 чер 2018
- One of the questions that I get asked often is, “how long should I run my pool pump each day?” There is of course no answer that will fit every pool owner, but I will list some guidelines that you should follow. The basic rule of thumb is that you want to run your pool long enough for one cycle of water to pass through the filter and back into the pool again. So, you need to run your pool long enough for all the water in the pool to pass through your filter and back into the pool.
Calculating the flow rate of your pool in gallons per minute (GPM) here in the US is the only way to get the exact run time each day. To do this you can estimate based on your pump size, the distance your pump is from the skimmer, the filter size and the number of pipes you have in your equipment area. This is known as Total Dynamic Head and from this calculation you can get the GPM of your pool. Then you would take your pool size and divide it by the gallons per minute to get your run time in hours. Not easy in the least so many times you are running your pool for too short a period, meaning the water may not be safe to swim. Or you are running it for too long which means you are just wasting electricity and raising the cost of operating your pool.
Let me step back a minute and talk about why your standard one speed pool ump is probably the biggest energy hog in your house. Sometimes even more than your Air Conditioner. When you are running your 1.5 hp or 2 hp pump you are running it at 3450 RPM (Revolutions Per Minute). The cost of this translated into Watts Per Hour which in turn is reflected in your bill in Kilowatt Hours (kWh) is
about 2300 Watts. Or the equivalent of having Twenty-Three 100-Watt light bulbs on in your house every hour. In my area we are on a Tiered billing system so the more kWh of power you use the higher your Tier and the higher your cost per kWh. Thus, running your pool pump 12 hours per day when you technically only need to run it 8 hours per day means that you are paying for an extra 64,000 Watts each week which means you are wasting money on your electricity bill each month and in effect losing money each month.
The easiest way to know your pool's exact GPM is with a Flow Meter. This takes all the calculating and guessing out of the equation and a Flow Meter will give you the exact GPM of your pool pump. So, for example say you have a 20,000-gallon pool and the Flow Meter says your pump is working at a rate of 70 GPM. You would take the 70 GPM number and times it by 60 minutes giving you 4,200 gallons per hour. 20,000 gallons divided by 4,200 gallons per hour means that you will need to run your pool for about 5 hours per day to get all the water from the pool through the filter and back out into the pool again. So, if you were running your pool for 8 hours before installing the Flow Meter you were running your pool and extra 90 hours per month. Not only wearing out your pump faster but wasting a lot of money on electricity.
I prefer the FlowVis Flow Meter if you are interested in installing one at your pool.
With a Variable Speed Pump, the exact gallons per minute becomes an even more important factor since you will be running the pump at different speeds or RPM. To maximize your overall energy savings with a VS pump you need to run it on a lower speed for a longer period each day verses the higher speed. So, without knowing the GPM at each set RPM there is really no way to know if you should set your pump to run for 8 hours at 1600 RPM then 4 hours at 2600 RPM or 6 hours at 1600 RPM and 3 hours t 2600 RPM. This could further skew the run time in the wrong direction verses a standard single speed pump. So, for a pool with a VS pump installed a flow meter is that much more critical.
Bottom line, you need to know the GPM of your pool to set your run time to make your pool safe to swim in and to also avoid paying for energy you don't need. Setting your pools run time is very critical and I highly suggest installing a Flow Meter - it will pay for itself in one year, maybe even one month.
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Real talk, thanks swimming pools tips and tricks. I've been watching your videos (off and on) for 3 years now since I've been a pool guy and I even recommend your videos to my customers any time they have any questions I feel I can't resolve. Thanks for making good content that benefits us all.
Thanks for the positive feedback! 👊
Pro tip: watch series on kaldrostream. I've been using them for watching loads of movies these days.
@Pablo Dustin yea, have been using Kaldrostream for months myself :D
@Pablo Dustin yea, have been using kaldroStream for since november myself =)
I'm just getting our pool installed and we did get a two speed 2 horsepower pump. We are being told to run the pump on low speed for four or six hours per day and on hight speed when using the pool or using cleaning robot. Thoughts??
I would suggest having a standard VS pump installed instead of the 2-speed pump
So how many times should the water in a pool in Texas be completely circulated? Why would Texas be any different than any other state? Hotter? More sun? Further south? I'm a first time pool owner in Houston, Texas with a Hayward VS pump... Thanks for the videos, they are really helping me! Thanks in advance for your response.
This is information from the feedback I get from the pool service guys in Texas. Some have told me that one cycle is not enough for the hot humid weather in some parts of Texas and that a lot of the pools there are very large.
Thanks. It is hot and humid here! I don't know that 17000 is very large but at 825 square feet and being shallow, perhaps it is kinda big, just not deep. Thanks for your reply!
Your pool is fairly small. Similar to the size of the pools here in CA. I would try to get away with just one cycle of water everyday.
Thanks again.
I have a vs pump and my pool is 10,000 gallons, my question is can i run my pump in a lower rpm all the time? My pump is doing 30gpm at 1400rpm so can I run my pool pump just for 6 hours every day? Thanks
Same. Here. Great question
What about winter time in Fl. I just got a vs pump pent air...and a heater..the heater has to stay on if the flow rate is enough...so is it ok to keep my poop pump 24 hours a day...but low rpms..1,377? Is that killing my energy efficiency? The pool looks great and all...I wanted to ask u how do I best get my energy efficiency and pool pump to say on with enough flow
That sounds fine to me. Figure you are using about 130 watts every hour so it is about the same as running a 2.0 hp pump about 2 hours. You are still saving a lot on energy cost. I prefer to run my VS pools on a higher speed for 3-4 hours -2400 RPM and then on a low speed like 1400 RPM for 12-16 hours.
@@SPL do u think I should lower the rpms down to like 900 or 1000? Only reason why I wanted to check with u, i want that pool heater on, it requires flow and if pump isn't on/or enough flow, it won't kick on. I wanted to keep that temperature at 86 that it's set at..I have a cover on pool ...I just have to keep this pump on during night to keep that heater on, so if temperature drops..my heater will kick on...what would u do? I just didn't wanta huge energy bill..friend who installed the pump he's a AC guy..got me that top of line pentair vs pump..set it about 1300 said to run it 24 hours. I'm getting nervous...that heat pump barely kicks on..
@@SPL PS I love your channel man..thank you ...I'm learning alot...my wife wants me to get a salt cell. I'm trying to gauge if I should get the pentair ic 30 or 40 - I live on FL...do u have any recommendations? He's giving me a install price with ic 40 for $1,100.00...i don't have anyone to ask if it's more efficient bigger cell less running time or not? Any advice I would greatly appreciate brother.
Most VS pumps have GPM readings on the pump LCD screen now, is this needed for those pumps?
Those are pretty inaccurate. Off by as much as 20 GPM. I saw one being tested at the pool show by the FlowVis Flow Meter guys. Not very reliable at this point.
I have a friend who maintains his (salt water) pool. He claims he only runs the pump about 1 hr a day and still maintains the appropriate levels of chemicals in the pool. I know that’s not enough time to cycle his nice size pool through the filter but what are the affects of running it 1 hr a day? He claims 6-8 hrs a day is a waste of energy and not necessary. I don’t agree...
One hour is too short. The water probably is not safe to swim in.
Hey Man how many gallons is your pool?
My personal pool is about 15,000 gallons.
I have kept various pools green free for months at a time in San Diego without pumps. Pool just start getting dusty. Could imagine staining in new pools or pools with lots of vegitation or dust blowing in. That were pools not being used. Sure you can send water for pathogens in a lab. Pool chemistry never out of range either.
Israel Ramirez your comment doesn't even make sense.. in English.. what's the point of your comment? Want a cookie?? 🍪
Brandon B sure i can translate it into Spanish. Um no. Cookies are fine. I like the grandmother's cookies.
Israel Ramirez never asked you to translate to Spanish? You don't want a cookie but you do want a grandmothers cookie?
It depends. I will be the judge of that.