Electric Bill super high - how much is the pump costing us?

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juicepluspoolmom

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Sep 11, 2009
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We got our first electric bill in our new house. It was double what my conservative spouse estimated. Wondering how much of that we can contribute to running the pool pump 10 - 12 hours per day? What can we do from a pool perspective to cut power usage? When I replace the pump and or just the pump motor, what energy efficient options are out there?

Is this a normal and expected or planned phenomenon for pool owners in the summer months where the pump runs a lot?

We are watching our A/C usage and clothes washing - as these seem to be the other likely major contributors.

Just as a side bar - my spouse asked the Electric Company to come do an energy audit. He says they advertise that they do this - but he was treated as though he was the first to ever actually request one. He is now having a hard time getting them to call him back!

The first lady he spoke to at the electric company and he mentioned the amount of the bill we got - her only comment was "buy a smaller house!" :shock:
 
We had that initial shock as well. This is our second year of being in this house, and we just kind of became accustomed to having a 300/month electric bill. Found out the guts to the mechanical timer were broken, so I just made it a habit to shut it off at night. That's not peak usage time, so it probably does me no good. It maybe dropped our bill to 250 or so.

But yes, the pumps pull a lot of power. We have a programmable thermostat in the house, and alter it during the summer months to help offset the cost.

I'll be making the attempt to replace the timer next season.
 
juicepluspoolmom said:
We got our first electric bill in our new house. It was double what my conservative spouse estimated. Wondering how much of that we can contribute to running the pool pump 10 - 12 hours per day? What can we do from a pool perspective to cut power usage?
Click to expand...
I understand that Northstar is a pretty good pump, so it may last a while. You may be able to downsize it with a lower hp model depending upon your plumbing configuration, pool layout, etc. See http://www.haywardnet.com/inground/prod ... ductID=110

To figure out how much this pump is contributing to the electric bill:

Identify Pump Volts & Amps, hrs per day run time and your electric rate in cents per kWh

  • Calculate:
    kW= (Volts x Amps)/1000
    kWh= Hours per day x kW
    kWh(month)=kWh*30.5
    Multiply result by your electric rate (cents per kWh)

    Example: Pump 115 volts X 14.8 amps / 1000 = 1.702 kW
    1.702 kW * 3 hrs pump/filter time per day = 5.106 kWh (day)
    5.106 kWh * 30.5 avg. days in month = 155.733 kWh (month)
    156 kWh (month) * 20¢ electric rate (per kWh) = $31.20

Utility fees and sales taxes, if based on usage should be added to the electric rate.

The only way I know of to reduce the cost is to operate the pump fewer hours.
 
Well... my wife came home with one of those devices and I did a temporary hook up to my Hayward 1hp Superpump that is on a 20 amp circuit. At 9 cents per KWH, it came out to about $85/ month. This blew me away because that means my pump is costing me more to run than my heat pump and we keep our pool at 90+ degrees. I run my pump 16 hours a day, which is WAY overkill for my small pool. However, I do like to have it running when we are in the pool. ( We have a couple of labs that "fall" into the pool frequently :roll: ) I have a simple single event on/off Intermatic timer that is set to go off at 10:00pm and on at 6:00am. I think the solution is better management of pump run times. I am looking at the Intermatic P1353ME. Not wanting to hijack this thread, but can anybody share some experience with the PE953 or similar timers?

Thanks,
Greg
 
Hello juicepluspoolmom

That's a big pump for your pool. I would reccomend a 1hp 2 speed (pentair whisperflow is good) that way you can run it for say, 10 hrs a day on low and for vacuming you use high speed
this will save you a lot of money at least 50% probally more.

Happy Swims
Frank
 
GregJ said:
Well... my wife came home with one of those devices and I did a temporary hook up to my Hayward 1hp Superpump that is on a 20 amp circuit. At 9 cents per KWH, it came out to about $85/ month. This blew me away because that means my pump is costing me more to run than my heat pump and we keep our pool at 90+ degrees. I run my pump 16 hours a day, which is WAY overkill for my small pool. However, I do like to have it running when we are in the pool. ( We have a couple of labs that "fall" into the pool frequently :roll: ) I have a simple single event on/off Intermatic timer that is set to go off at 10:00pm and on at 6:00am. I think the solution is better management of pump run times. I am looking at the Intermatic PE953. Not wanting to hijack this thread, but can anybody share some experience with the PE953 or similar timers?

Thanks,
Greg
Click to expand...


Greg that pump is way overkill for that oversized hot tub.
 
Our previous pool we had the pump running 8 hours each day. When we deciced to try and cut energy costs, we cut pump running time an hour at a time for a week and monitored pool water quality. We were able to run the pump less than 4 hours each day and still have a great looking pool. However, we also did not have a chlorine generator. The pool we have now came with a chlorine generator which was turned off and the pool is now BBB. I am now running this pool's pumps (one infloor cleaner and one filter) for a total of 4 hours each day. Still looks great. May drop a half hour and see what happens. Don't want to find out how much it would be to run the CG. Likely have to replace the cell anyway, and the 300+ dollars to buy a new cell can get a lot of bleach. jmho.
 

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ntrsandman said:
[W]e cut pump running time an hour at a time for a week and monitored pool water quality. We were able to run the pump less than 4 hours each day and still have a great looking pool [...] Still looks great. May drop a half hour and see what happens.

I'm in your camp, but I feel a little rogue sometimes, esp. when I hear owners say that they must pump 8 or 12 hrs a day -- and they still have problems with their water. Pump operation time for my pool is 3 hrs summer, 1 hr winter. But be sure to continue to check water balance, FC/CC and clarity.

Don't want to find out how much it would be to run the CG. Likely have to replace the cell anyway, and the 300+ dollars to buy a new cell can get a lot of bleach.

There's arguments for both sides (1 economic and 1 convenience); it sounds like you know which side of the argument works best for you. :)
Click to expand...
 
We got a single-speed with our pool last summer and it jacked our electric bill up by about $90/mo. just running it 10hr/day. So by fall, we switched it out with a 2-speed, run it 24/7 on low and our bill only increased by about $30-35/mo. So we went from a $90 increase to a $30 increase - well worth the cost of the new pump! According to some calculation I saw somewhere when we first had our install, we had to run our pump 10/hr to get the water circulated one time. So I figured with the 2-speed, on low, it would take 20/hr (yes, I know that's not scientific!) So I just leave it on all the time, since our bill dropped by so much anyway. Our rate is $.1270 kwh.
 
If you really want to get a handle on things, I might suggest Ted. He's pretty cool, and can tell you how much each device and how much your entire house is costing you in real time per hour, or per day. It also can keep a history of your usage and graph it out for you. You can put all of this on the web so we can watch your electrical usage, in real time, if you want. The demo of that is right here!

Of couse it's much cheaper just to buy a two speed pump, then it will be to set all of that up.

$199.95 for TED 5000, with built in webserver, a set of CT's, a MTU, and a gateway.

Each additional subpanel (or individual electric item) costs $84.95 for another set of CT's and an MTU. You can put in an additional 3 items or subpanels, for a total of 4.

There's also the cheaper TED 1000, but it does less stuff. :mrgreen:
 
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