Intelliflo and Caretaker

[ea75]

I'm still learning about my new pool and the entire setup, plumbing, etc...but I plan on replacing my old 2 pump setup with this pump. (I made a thread in this forum about my second spa only pump breaking...most likely due to freeze damage.)

However, today I realized something. All of the return jets to the pool are the Caretaker 99 pressure cleaning heads. Looking up the manual from Polaris online, I see that the system operates at a minimum in the 15psi range. So, if I installed the new variable flow pump and ran a low speed to save power, I wouldn't generate the pressure required to run the pool returns, correct?

If so, that's no big deal, since my spa overflows into the pool and the spa has the caretaker pressure returns as well as eyeball returns and the normal spa returns (air and water). I don't really care about the caretaker system for cleaning...so I'm thinking about running the new VS pump in a lower flow mode to the spa (still pulling from the pool skimmer, main drain, and spa drain. This way all filtering is done, but the return doesn't go to the pool directly. If/when I want to run higher pressure to user the caretaker system or the auto vacuum, I can simply program the pump for a certain time to do that.

Does that sound reasonable?

 

[JasonLion]

Re: New Intelliflo VS pump.

For the Caretaker to work correctly, you can't run on the lowest speed. You will still be saving some electricity on a speed high enough for the Caretaker to work, just not as much as you would save without it.

Returning 100% of the water to the spa tends to make the circulation in the pool fairly bad. I suspect that the Caretaker returns will still let water through at lower pressures, they just won't cycle between zones correctly, so leaving them on at a lower speed will probably work and will give you better circulation than the spa alone.

 

[ea75]

Re: New Intelliflo VS pump.

I couldn't find anything in the manual for the Caretaker system about whether it will let any flow through at pressures below the working pressure. If it does, then that's great. If it doesn't, then I think I will simply go the route of returning 100% to the spa, with maybe a little time at a higher speed to ensure better pool circulation.

 

[Just-a-PB]

Re: New Intelliflo VS pump.

Yes it will, thats not a problem.
It takes aprox 2 hours at a higher speed to have the heads rotate fully.

 

[ea75]

Thanks for the replies.