Reduce Pump hours over Winter

[markmac]

Hello,

This is my first winter with our pool. Now that the water temp is 60F or slightly lower, and I don't expect it to come up fro many months, can I reduce the number of hours the pump runs every day?

I have a 2HP pump running for 5 hours per day in the summer and had no issue with the BBB method. Can I cut this back to 3 or 4 hours? Even less?

Thanks,

 

[mas985]

I have a 1/2 HP and run mine about 2 hours per day in the winter. You could probably get away with an hour but you may need to experiment some. Because of the reduced run time, the surface will probably have lower FC than the deeper parts so as you reduce run time keep an eye on FC on the surface and make sure it doesn't get too low although you can get away with lower FC as the pool temps drop. A good time to check is right before the pump schedule starts.

 

[RobbieH]

I'm with the above, you can probably get away with 2, but you might reduce it bit by bit to see what happens. I never close my pool, and I have a serious problem with leaves this time of year, so I still run mine at least 4 hours a day.

Sounds to me like you have a much more powerful pump than I do, on a much smaller pool. 2 hours may be enough!

 

[susa]

During winters in the deep south - I do just the opposite with all maintained pools - ie. deliberately up the runtime but reduce the speed - for my own pool I run 24 hr/7 day schedule @ 95 watts of power

 

[Malibu07]

I cut our back to 4 hours a day too until I officially close the pool.