Need new pump

[j_m_min]

25,000 gallon pool in houston texas. Right now my pump is costing me about $110 per month just to run it about 8 hours a day. Also going to upgrade to salt water pool this summer. I have no idea what to look for or how to shop for pumps or salt water cell systems. Is there a consensus as to which ones/brand last the longest? That is probably the one I want to go with. any tips or links as to how to get started would be great.

 

[jblizzle]

Size the SWG for 1.5-3 times the size of your pool. The 40k cells, like the Hayward, I would call a minimum for you. Pentair SWGs have a limitation of only being set in 20% increments if not used with Pentair automation. CircuPool is also a brand that makes larger SWGs.

The cheapest way to lower your electrical cost is to not run the pump as much. You should only need a few hours, see Determine Pump Run Time. The next option is to just put a 2-speed motor on your existing pump and run on low most of the time. The final option would be to get a VS pump which is going to cost a lot upfront and might take years to recoup the cost from power savings, unless you can get decent rebates.

 

[j_m_min]

wow I never thought of just changing the pool pump motor and not having to change out the whole pump itself. How do you control the speed of the new VS pump without any of the controls?

I figure the new pump will cost me about $1000 with install and should save me at least $50 per month.

 

[jblizzle]

A 2-speed motor you can either add a switch on the back of the motor to manually pick the speed. Or use a household 3-way light switch in a more convenient location to pick the speed. Or use a timer to automatically switch the speeds.

All true VS pumps come with a controller attached to the motor.

There are a few 2-speed motors that you can buy that also have a timer/controller attached to them as well.

 

[j_m_min]

what is the cost of changing the motor vs. buying a brand new pump roughly?

 

[jblizzle]

Seems that Google could better answer than. I would guess the motor is roughly 50-60% of the cost of the entire pump. But with just the motor, there is no plumbing changes required.

 

[MitchRyan912]

what is the cost of changing the motor vs. buying a brand new pump roughly?

I thought I was saving some $$$ by just buying a new 2-speed motor for $300, versus spending $600+ for a whole new pump. However, I ran into some problems and the new motor burnt up, as there were any number of issues that led to the original motor problem, and one of those could have been a mismatch between the motor and the impeller. You need to take care of matching the impeller size to the new motor. My original pump was a cheapie pump, and it probably had an oversized impeller to begin with, and I tried to put a slightly smaller (max speed) motor in.

If I could have done it all over again, I'd have just bought a whole new pump.