Upgrade Tristar VSP to Ecostar VSP because of noise?

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T

TierQQ

0
May 24, 2016
4
Phoenix, AZ
I just had a pool build finished last month by a reputable builder and overall it has been one issue after another. One issue I have been fighting is how loud the tristar vsp pump is at the speed needed for my in-floor cleaning system.

I had a rep from A&A come out and check on the infloor system and one of the things he did was check the pressure at the popups. To get the flow they recommend he has my pump now set at 3278rpm during the infloor cleaning cycle, 4 hours. The pump is 20' from my house and I have a large home, and I could hear the thing from anywhere inside my home. When outside, it was louder than my A/C units... it drove me nuts and I am sure my neighbors too. So I started looking into the sound and they initially installed the "concrete pad" (which is actually foam with a thin concrete shell over it) over my decorative rock and that lead to some bad vibrations which I made them fix and also had them put a vibration isolation pad between the pump and the concrete pad. There is no longer any vibration on the pad. The housing over the fan was making a bad noise, I loosened it and aligned it better and re tightened it. The pump does not appear to have anything mechanically wrong or cavitating. It is definitely quieter but I can still hear it in parts of my house and it is very loud outside... much louder than I care to live with. I was actually under the assumption I was getting a ecostar from the pool builder and not the tristar as that is what we discussed, but looking back they charged me for the tristar and installed that so here we are...

My thought is, that if I had a higher HP pump I could run it at lower RPM and it would cut down quite a bit on the noise. I am basing this on how much quieter my pump is at 2500-2700 vs 3200(not just the motor but the fan)
I put a vacuum gauge and pressure gauge to calculate my TDH and find my flow rate. At 3450 rpm- 5.5 in hg and 26psi for a TDH of 66 with a flow of around 65gpm. If I am operating at 3278/3450 then the flow supposedly required by my infloor is around 61gpm.

I know TDH changes based on the velocity of the water, so I am a bit lost in how to find out what RPM I could run the ecostar at to get the same flow. Can anyone help me get an estimate of what I could run the ecostar or how the noise would compare between the two pumps? I would be really happy with the noise level of my tristar at 2500 or 2700rpm. Money and efficiency is not a consideration here, just noise levels.

I am getting good skimming still at 1500rpm so that is what I am using for my low setting.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading the novel...
 
First, welcome to the forum!

Can you post a video of the pump in action?

Unfortunately, in-floor cleaners require high flow rates and high pressure which generally creates noise in both the pump and the plumbing so changing the pump may not help but it depends on exactly where than noise is coming from. Is the noise coming from the pump housing, motor or other parts of the plumbing?
 
Mark, thanks for the response! I cannot get a video posted right now but I feel pretty confident in saying I don't think there is anything wrong with the pump/motor. After fixing the fan housing and using the isolation pad the bad vibration noises are gone. I have also spent time listening and looking at the plumbing and I do not believe the nuisance noise is coming from it. The noise I am hearing is from the motor and the fan and is directly correlated to the RPM. For what its worth the two people I have had come out and look at it say that is just how loud they are, and the first guy is the one that noticed the pad vibrations.

I know two people who have Pentair variable speed pumps, and they are much quieter than this Hayward. The sound from the motor on the Pentair does seem quieter, but where the Hayward gets a lot louder is the fan. At high RPM that small fan is spinning so fast that it just makes a lot of air noise. The people who have the pentairs have them right next to their house and my Hayward is over 20' away and my pump is more noticeable in my home(probably a function of dB level but also frequency). I have the Hayward prologic automation system(pool builder only uses Hayward) and I want to take advantage of that, or I would probably just get a Pentair at this point on my own. I gave a bit of misinformation on the plumbing in my sig, it is 2.5'' suction side and 2'' return plumbing.

My overall logic(which may be flawed) is with a bigger pump I could push the same amount of water at lower RPM which would overall reduce the sound of the motor and the fan since it wont be spinning as fast. I feel like while a bigger motor may be louder at top speeds, it will not be an issue if it is able to run at lower RPM. What I just don't know is how low of RPM I could really run it at... which is what I was trying to figure out by measuring my TDH and flow. I don't mind spending the money if I am confident it will help, but I don't want to throw my money away on some bad logic though. I would be perfectly happy if I could have infloor properly do its cleaning at the dB level of the tristar at 2500/2700rpm... it is a huge jump in dB to 3200 coming from the motor and fan.
Any thoughts? Thanks,
 
If the sound is coming from just the motor, then I would agree the larger pump/motor might make it more quiet but the EcoStar is based on the same wet end as the TriStar VS, they just use different impellers and motors. So the water noise will be very similar.

I know two people who have Pentair variable speed pumps, and they are much quieter than this Hayward.
Click to expand...
Are you comparing them at the same RPM?

What I just don't know is how low of RPM I could really run it at... which is what I was trying to figure out by measuring my TDH and flow. I don't mind spending the money if I am confident it will help, but I don't want to throw my money away on some bad logic though.
Click to expand...
There are two TriStar VS pumps and one has the same head curve as the EcoStar (SP32206EEV). But if you have the SP3200VSP, the difference in flow rate between the two pumps on the same plumbing is about 10%. So if you need to run at 3278 RPM for the TriStar, the EcoStar will be about 2950 RPM.
 
Yes I compared them at the same RPM. The motor seemed a bit quieter, but was a different frequency for sure which may be coming into play with how it is traveling. The hayward fan is what makes a lot of extra noise when up close.

I do have the SP3200VSP. A 10% flow spread is much lower than I would have expected and I am not sure if that would really make it worth it at the end of the day. I am not second guessing, just like to learn... can you share with me how you come up with that?
Thanks for the insight.
 
To figure out flow rates is fairly simple if you use some approximations. Given you have in-floor cleaner and head loss runs a little higher than normal 2/2.5" plumbing, I assumed that your plumbing curve was similar to the Energy Star plumbing Curve-A (if you don't know what that is read the Hydraulics sticky). I then used the Energy Star pump data and compared both pump's flow rates for Curve-A at 3450 RPM. For the TriStar, the flow rate is 63 GPM and the EcoStar is 70 GPM. From the pump affinity equations we know that RPM and GPM are directly proportional. So for the EcoStar to match any flow rate of the TriStar, the TriStar RPM must be multiplied by 63/70 or 0.9 to get to the equivalent flow rate for the EcoStar.

You can also use the spreadsheet in my signature to first determine the actual plumbing curve from filter pressure and a description of the suction side plumbing (pipe lengths, fittings, etc). This plumbing curve can then be used to determine the flow rate from the EcoStar and the required RPM to match the flow rate but it should be pretty close to the estimate above because the plumbing curve accuracy doesn't matter much for this type of analysis.
 
I didn't catch the energy star links in your hydraulics sticky before, there is a lot in there. It does seem based on my suction/pressure calculation I am very close to the A-Curve, well within error margins. Even if I was at the C-curve it doesn't make that much more of a difference at .885 instead of .9 That diminishing curve is much greater than I would have thought and most likely not worth the money and hassle. Looking at the flow charts from Hayward for each pump and comparing them on the same rpm curves with the same tdh is very misleading, considering the tdh I guess changes with the velocity. Those charts show around double the flow, which I knew that real world that would probably be too good to be true. I will have to try and find another solution to quieting it down.
Thanks for the enlightenment.
 
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