Just bought a 21 foot above ground pool and was looking to see how long to run the pool for? I had a 24 round with a DME filter at are last house and i was told to run it for 3hrs a day and the pool was great. I got this pool from Namco and they are telling me to run it for 12hrs. What do you think?
How long to run the pump 12hrs???
- Thread starter castman
- Start date
Welcome Really the minimum amount of time required is the time that keeps the pool clean enough for you. 12 hours seems like a long time unless the pump is WAY undersized.
The amount of time required to run a pump for chemical distribution is really pretty low, so the real driving factor is how much filtration time do you need. Just scale back the time until the pool is not clean enough for your liking and then bump it up a bit.
As long as you keep your water chemically balanced and filter enough your pool will stay clear.
Now for the "hard" questions:
How are your testing your chemical levels?
What are you using to add chlorine to your pool?
If you are not sure of the "correct" answers to these questions, I would suggest you start reading Pool School which is at the top right of every page.
12hrs isn't that bad if you have an energy efficient pump and have something else needing long run times (like solar heating). I think many pool owners run their pump from 7am-7pm, but it depends on the size of your pool, the flow rate of your pump, and other factors. In general, you want all the water in the pool to go through your filter at least once/day...twice if you are a clean freak 
I have a 24K gallon pool with a pump that is running almost continously near 40GPM for 12hrs/day..so all the water is going through 1.2 times/day and I've found this is the minimum needed to keep the water the way I want.
I have a 24K gallon pool with a pump that is running almost continously near 40GPM for 12hrs/day..so all the water is going through 1.2 times/day and I've found this is the minimum needed to keep the water the way I want.
It varies dramatically. I have a somewhat lower flow rate than MattM, and almost as large a pool, and I am fine at five or six hours a day.
I'be been running mine 4 hrs. a day, 18,000 gallon inground. But I get a lot of shade and not much debris.
You can sum up the above posts and see how widely it varies depending on the conditions of your pool. Like jblizzle said, I would probably start at 12 hours and then cut it back two hours every 3-4 days until I noticed the pool not being as clean as I like, then bump it back up just a little.
For me, two separate 3 hour shifts works fine so far this season.
For me, two separate 3 hour shifts works fine so far this season.
On my old kWh-sucking single speed motor I cut back to 4 hours (in two shifts) with no problem. I use the "check the underwater light beam for particles test" which I think is a pretty definitive test for water clarity. I would sometimes bump it up after a few days of rain when I saw some larger particles in the beam. I also would run it longer in the Spring when the crud factor is highest. The savings from managing it this way are significant.
I'm looking forward to the whole exercise with my brand new energy-efficient two-speed motor.
I'm looking forward to the whole exercise with my brand new energy-efficient two-speed motor.
Thank you for the info! I have been running the pump for 4hrs and it has been great!