new to this pool thing

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kwevanson

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Jul 8, 2013
1
kansas city, mo
Hello! My name is Kari and I'm learning to love my pool-thanks to TFP. But, there have been some bumps in the road....currently trying to decide whether we made a mistake in our latest pump purchase:

Bought a house(3 yrs ago) with a pool-appr. 20x40 in-ground, 3 ft shallow-10ft deep, guessing 37,000/gal, spa attached, no heater(yet), replaced the old pump with exact same one last year(2 hp Challenger). Problem is that our electric bills were running $300-$400/month more once we open. We do not have a timer, we are open to replacing the pump with anything that can lower that bill-or would adding the timer show enough improvement? We probably ran the pump 8-12 hrs/day.(maybe that was overkill?) Would like to add a heater, but need to get the cost down on that electric bill first. Does this sound like something that can be accomplished or is this a 'welcome to pool ownership' moment? We open the pool May-Oct.

(not sure where that signature is coming from, I'm Kari from Kansas City, not Bob)
 
Even with a generous allowance for inefficiency and assuming the pump actually produces 2HP, you are talking about ~22.5KWH per day running the pump 12 hours. If your rate is 15 cents per KWH, that is about $3.37 a day or $100 a month. Almost certainly your pool isn't using that much electricity. At best, you might squeeze $30 or $40 out of your bill by going with a better efficiency pump, and more than likely it won't make a noticeable difference. Not that it isn't worthwhile, but it probably isn't the main source of your high electric bills.

There was a glitch with signatures in the changeover to the new forum software, and it seems to have affected people who didn't have signatures more often than others.
 
:wave: Welcome to TFP!!!

The easiest way to save money is to not run the pump ... so step one would be to reduce the run time down and verify it keeps the pool clean enough for you. Could be only 4 hours. See: http://www.troublefreepool.com/content/152-determine-pump-run-time

The next best option is to replace the motor with a 2-speed pump and you would only run on high for the spa or filter cleaning. Low speed uses 25% of the power as on high speed but moves 1/2 the water. So even running twice as long on low would save 50% of the power consumption.
 
Welcome to the forum. :wave: +1 to jblizzle's selection on replacing the motor with a 2-speed and reading the Pump Run Time article he referenced. The process described in that article is the one I used in determining my pump run time and I was able to reduce it dramatically.
 
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