What do you think about my upgrade

[Jacspill]

Hi All,
Thanks for this great forum, without it I could not even think about taking care of my pool myself, it"s good not to feel alone.
I have a estimated 16000 gallons pool with a old 1HP single speed pump and sand filter.
I'm in the process of getting a Heliocol solar water heating system and I was thinking I should upgrade my equipment as well.

This is what I came up with:
IntelliFlo - VS (011018)
CCRP 100 - Clean & Clear RP - Cartridge Filter
Solartouch

I am unclear on sizing the filter though, i'm planning to add a salt chlorine generator and a hot tub in the future, will the filter be ok?
Any objections against the Heliocol collectors?

Thanks

 

[jblizzle]

For your size pool, we would recommend a cartridge filter around 225 sqft, so that filter might be half the size. ... assuming the 100 is the sqft.

Nothing against Heliocol besides price. I like the way their panels connect to each other and that they use individual tubes which reduces the impact of wind catching the panels. I did a self install of used panels for likely 1/3 the cost of new with installation. Seems to be a very limited number of places that will sell parts to the consumer which was a little troublesome.

Posted from my Droid with Tapatalk ... sorry if my response is short

 

[Jacspill]

Thanks, I'll look into the bigger filter. Any specific rules on how to size the filter from the pool size?

For Heliocol I haven't seen any places selling directly and I'll be more comfortable having it installed and guarantied. The only thing I haven't done yet is to convince the guy to use the solar touch controller instead of the heliomatic one that is not compatible with the intelliflow.

 

[jblizzle]

If you look is this post about half way down there is a filter sizing table:
hydraulics-101-have-you-lost-your-head-t915.html#p6543

We generally recommend roughly doubling the cartridge and DE size listed and use the table size for sand filters. These are just estimates as it really depends on your location, how long the pool is open, how much you use it, how much dirt you get, etc. You really can not go too big on cartridge filters, but too big will just cost more money. There are members here that only clean their cartridge once a year, and that is only out of a sense of duty and not due to a pressure rise.

If you pool is not open all year and you do not have a lot of debris and dirty people swimming, you could likely get away with something a little smaller than double the table size. The minimum filter size must be large enough to accommodate your pump flow rate (the Intelliflo is a BIG pump) and the larger you go, the less often you have to clean it.

 

[Jacspill]

Ok, in this case I'd go for the 200 sqft filter, thanks!

 

[Jacspill]

Another thing I was curious about, can I install the pump and the filter below the water level? Can the filter and the pump be installed at different heights from one another? I live on the hills (Los Angeles) and I'm trying to "hide" the equipment from the pool area so we have more space.

 

[jblizzle]

Within reason, the relative levels of the pump / filter to the pool water should not matter. One thing to remember, if the pump is below the water level, water will pour out of the pump basket when you take the lid off to clean it. Some people like this to help clean out the pump, but you will likely need to add a suction side valve (don't use a cheap ball valve, use a pool valve) so you can close off the suction pipe to stop the water from draining out. My pump sits slightly below the water line so that the pump is about half full of water when I take the lid off.

 

[Jacspill]

All right, sounds good, I like the idea of the pump sitting below the water level so there is always water in it.