single pump design?

[sri]

We need suggestions if we are doing something wrong. The PB is suggesting using a common pump for water feature, spa, and pool. We are worried that may create problems esp if salt water starts eroding the rocks and we want to cutoff the water feature.

We are in the process of bidding on pool construction and have read through a number of forum posts and pool school, which has been very helpful.
We are planning a build in North Texas (DFW area), pool size is about 88 ft in perimeter ~ 35ft x20 ft, ~15,000 gallons. It will have a separate standard size spa 7ft -8 ft, and about 12 ft of weeping waterfall. The pool is going to have a salt water cell.

Equipment to be installed.

hayward tristar two speed

single pump for pool, spa, water feature

Aqua Rite TCl-15 salt cell

hayward 60 s.q ft D.E filter

Polaris 280 with booster pump + Xleaf Debri remover

400k BTU heater for spa

sundek decking

tennesse flagstone coping

STONE SCAPES decking

no automatic remote (just key pad)

 

[Richard320]

One pump works fine for me for the spa and the pool. I don't have a waterfall.

A separate pump for that would be my choice. You won't ever be heating that water, so why run it through the heater? And it may drive up pH or just plain be too noisy to run it all the time.

 

[Corleone]

Wouldn't it have a valve to divert the water? You should be able to control the flow in cases where you have water features.

 

[currentking]

I have 1 pump for my pool, spa and water feature. The water feature is pre plummet for later install. The pump is variable speed which is good and there are valves for all 3.

 

[Jaimslaw]

Ditto going with the one pump set up coupled with separate valves to turn on or off the water feature. So long as pump rating is adequate, should work fine with one pump. I have a pool spa combo and waterfall feature with a common pump and could not be happier with this setup. Divertor valves for all three are remote controlled so a touch of a button and waterfall is either on or off.

 

[spool]

Yep - one pump here as well.

 

[LongDuck]

One pump works fine for pool and waterfall, unless you want to run the waterfall more frequently and don't want to put the hours on your main filter pump. In that case you could go with a smaller pump which runs at lower volume with better efficiency, but with modern variable speed pumps, you can have simpler plumbing and set the RPM where you want it for water feature flow.

 

[rphpool]

Well I am going to give you a different opinion. Our PB insisted on 2 pumps, 1 for pool and spa, and 1 for water feature. He told us if we used 1 pump for everything and tried to have spa on full power and water feature going that the water feature would not get enough water and spa will not have the power we wanted. So we went with 3hp Pentair VS for pool and spa. At full speed the spa rocks! We used a single speed for water feature ( 3 water falls on wall ) and they always look "full" when they are on. Everything is controlled by the Pentair Easytouch system. Just another way to consider.

 

[Jaimslaw]

That 3hp must really kick butt on full speed, as I have a single spped 2HP with water feature, dual spill over and rooftop solar with good results. If you weren't too worried about energy concumption and ran the VS at the full HP, I thin it would easily handle the load of everything on full power. But then full power of the VS 3Hp would seem to defeat the costs savings of a VS running it lower speeds (and thus less water being pushed, so to speak).

My 2 Hp single speed runs a large water feature + pumps the water up to 2nd story solar panels + has a healthy dual spill over spa (i.e very strong flow). I've always wondered if I could get away with a 1.5 HP, as I understand that dropping down by just 1/2 hp equals a surprising large savings in power consumption. But then I start to worry...will my dual spill over spa throw out a vigorous "water fall" effect; or will I see some breaks in that water spill over because it is underpowered with a 1.5 HP (i.e. spill over sorta looking anemic). It's not like I can "test drive" a 1.5 HP pump. I guess I could if I had a variable speed pump.

I think if you are going with a variable speed, the two pump would make send: it would allow for less energy consumption by running the VS at a low, cost saving rate of speed; then running your other pump for the water feature at what you would hope nets you reasonable good energy consumption. Not an expert on this by any means. Just my two cents.