Surprised at how long I need to run my pump

[dmpizzle]

I estimate I have a 36,000 gallon pool. Recently, I bought a Pentair Intelliflo variable speed pump (to save money), as well as a FlowViz so I could see exactly how much water my pump was pumping. Prior to the FlowViz, I was running the pump at 1500rpm for 6 hours a day, happily counting all the $$ I was saving running at a lower speed (it only cost me 1.7kW)

Well, I got the FlowViz installed yesterday, and much to my surprise, 1500rpm is only pushing 10gpm! To do a full turnover of my pool every day, I would need to do 25gpm for 24 hours a day and according to the FlowViz, that means I need to run at 2000rpm, which would cost me 12.7kWh every day. Needless to say, I'm much less happy now with the Intelliflo VS pump, and am trying to figure out how I can cut my energy costs down.

First of all, do the numbers above make sense? The Intelliflo performance curve suggests I should be getting 20gpm at about 18 feet of head, but I guess I have way more head than that. I'll need to figure out how to measure it.

Second of all, should I consider only doing 1/4 turn or a 1/2 turn every day? The point of getting a VS pump was to save money, but I don't see how that's going to happen if it barely pumps any water.

Thanks for all your input.

 

[jblizzle]

Needing a full turn over is antiquated advice. Read the article in Pool School in the How To section about determining pump run time.

Btw, the most efficient speed for your pump is 1000rpm.

 

[hdeters]

I installed an Intelliflo 2 years ago and love it. I run it at about 1300 rpm 24/7 and my water has never looked better! I bump it up when the kids want to run the fountain but I am very happy with water quality and electric bills. I dont know how many gpm I am pushing and dont worry about it since the water looks great. I would run slower but the flow switch on the SWG will throw a fault if I am not around 1300.