Running my pump

[sonyak]

So I've been reading through old threads regarding how long to run your pump per day, and now I'm totally lost.
Because I live in Canada, and have an indoor heated pool and spillover spa, with a SWG, I thought I had to run my pump 24/7 to keep the heat up in the water.
I have a Intellipro VS-3050 pump that I typically run at a constant 750 rpm (or speed 1). When I want the spillover effect, then I run it at 1500 rpm (or speed 2). I use speed 3 (2350 rpm) for my barracuda, and speed 4 (3450 rpm) when I want to run my jets in the hot tub.
As far as I can tell from the literature I've read on my pump, it typically pumps 160 gpm in speed 1.
Now tell me if I'm wrong, because math is certainly not my forté, but with a 10,000 gallon pool, I'd only need to run my pump for just over an hour to get the water to fully circulate.
How can my pool maintain its heat and get enough sanitization from the SWG in just an hour a day?
I'm keeping pool at a fairly constant 86º, and the room at 88º. It is necessary to keep it this warm due to the cold outside, and the fact that my son uses the pool for therapy (he's got Cerebral Palsy and is in a wheelchair), and anything colder in this weather would seize his muscles. Okay, and I like it that warm in the cold weather.

Thanks in advance for any insight you might be able to lend to this situation.

On another note, I have questions about my chemical levels, but I will post that in the appropriate place. :-D

 

[Optoman]

Just a quick point. There is no way that your pump runs 160 gallons per minute in speed 1.
But yes, your math is right that if it did -- it would be just over an hour for a turn.

http://www.pentairpool.com/pdfs/intelliflovsDS.pdf page 4 for the curve.

Are you thinking liters per minute by chance?

 

[sonyak]

I might be thinking litres, I'm not sure. Or maybe I was thinking speed 1 is actually the highest, when I typed that part.
I read the pdf you linked me to, but I don't understand what the graph means.
Is there anyone out there that can explain this to me???

 

[mas985]

160 GPM is the maximum flow rate for the Intelliflo but that is with very little head loss. With typical pool plumbing, flow rate will be much much less than that. On a typical pool, 750 RPM will deliver about 22 GPM, 1500 RPM about 44 GPM and 3000 RPM about 88 GPM. Every plumbing system is different so these number will vary some.

I've attached a spreadsheet which allows VS Intelliflo owners to look up the GPM for a particular RPM and Watts used. So for a particular RPM setting, go across the table until you reach the approximate watt reading from the Intelliflo read out and read the GPM value from the column heading. This is approximate but gets you pretty close.

See here for the spreadsheet.

 

[sonyak]

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the spreadsheet. I'll take a look and see if I can interpret it.
You explanation of

With typical pool plumbing, flow rate will be much much less than that. On a typical pool, 750 RPM will deliver about 22 GPM, 1500 RPM about 44 GPM and 3000 RPM about 88 GPM

certainly helped me understand a little more about flow rates.
What do you consider typical pool plumbing? This way I'll have something to use as a baseline.

Any thoughts on how I should approach running the pump with regards to keeping the pool heated, and the SWG running to keep the pool at optimum chlorine levels? I have no problem running the pump for a shorter period of time (right now it's 24/7 on speed 1), but because the pool is indoor in Canada, it's kind of important to maintain the heat right now, otherwise I'm looking at a polar bear dip.