Did I mess up with Whisperflo?

[scpool]

Wish I had asked for help before I purchased.

I have a 4 year old ""L" shaped in-ground liner pool. 40x20 with an diving board in 8 foot deep end, and 30x20 on the "L." All of the 30x20 area is about 3.5 feet deep. Basically it is a 40x20 with an extra 20x10 foot 3.5 depth. I estimate it is about 40,000 gallons?

My PB is either not set up for the summer yet, or is retired. (can't reach by phone yet, but phone not disconnected, he does this each winter as pool building is kind of a hobby with him and he is near 70 now.) He is a great guy who came back after the first season and repaired the bottom of the deep end from water suction pockets, and put in new liner at that time, all no charge. The pool looks, and has operated great. Pump was very quite on low speed.

A few weeks ago my hayward super pump started getting loud. Now it is really loud. It is a 2-speed, 2 hp, and I think the service factor is 1.0. Model is 2615x202s. I run it 90+ percent of the time in low speed. It is mostly exposed to the hot afternoon SC sunshine although I have shaded it some. The pool stays "open" year round, with the pump running in the winter to create clorine and keep the water turning over, although less than in the summer. There is no pool heater hooked up.

The pump pad is about 15 feet from the corner of the deep end, about a foot above the water line.

I also have an intermatic 40k salt cell set up that just needed the cell replaced for the first time. (I cleaned the original 2x a year but it finally slowly failed.)

There are no special water features or spa with the pool. The pool has a 5 foot, front to back, set of fiberglass steps that we use as the main entry point to the pool.

There are 3 skimmers total, and one main drain in the bottom of the 8 foot deep area. Each skimmer and the main drain has a ball joint shut off, all going to a main shut off, and then directly into the hayward 2 speed super pump. Two of the skimmers are on the far wall in the shallow end, 1 skimmer is on the far wall in the deep end.

I made a note when the pool went in that all pvc used around the pool was 1.5 inch. I didn't know how important that was at the time and didn't even ask about using 2 inch.

There is a run of two inch pipe going from the pump into the hayward pro 500 pound sand filter, (4.9) and a little 2 inch coming out of the filter, through the salt cell, and then reduced back to 1.5 inch for the returns.

The returns have a main splitter, with 6 returns going out one line and down the 40 foot side of the pool, and the other split return line going to the steps 2 return jets, which are in the shallow end, as far from the pump pad as you can get. So 8 returns total out of a two line spliter, after the salt cell.

Knowing that my current pump will not last much longer as it is getting pretty loud, and since I couldn't reach my PB, I went on a hunt for a new pump. I was pretty much convinced that the 2 hp might have been a bit much as it sure seemed to strain some the little bit I ran it on high speed. Low speed was pretty smooth.

So I just bought, and received the tracking number today, for a WFDS-6, 1.5/2.0 hp, 2-speed Whisperflo to replace the 2 hp hayward. I learned that the whisperflo should put out about the same flow, maybe even a tad more, than the higher hp rated super pump. The WFDS-6 is the pentair full rated 1.5 model, that they also sell as an uprated 2.0 hp, and I think the total rating came out to 2.2 vs 2.0 for the hayward.

I almost went with the 1.0/1.5 model but I wanted to make sure I moved enough water through the salt cell to generate clorine and I don't know if there is a minimum flow through the cell to get the full effect, and I need the clorine to keep coming with such a large pool......that and because 2 of the skimmers and 2 of the returns are so far from the pad.....

Anyway, I think I learned just enough to be dangerous, and if anyone has any suggestions about my move from the 2 hp super pump to the 1.5 whisperflo, I would love to hear them, including anything I need to watch for when actually swapping out the pump assuming my PB guy can't come out and do the swap out for me. I did check first and make sure the new whisperflo has a manual switch on the motor, as does my current hayward 2-speed.

Also, am I a candidate for some type of flexable tubing to go either into, or out of, the new pentair?

Thanks for any help, this is my first post here.

 

[JasonLion]

Welcome to TFP!

You are going to be fine. I would have gone with the next pump size down, but that isn't a big issue with a two speed. The cost doesn't go up nearly as quickly as the pump size increases when you are running on low speed (as compared to high speed).

1.5" plumbing might be alright. If you have several pipes running from/to the equipment pad in each direction then it isn't nearly as much of an issue if they are smaller pipe. Your situation is kind of mixed in this regard, as it sounds like there is more than one suction line, but all of the main returns run off of a single line. That puts your situation kind of in the middle, where 2" would have been nice, but isn't as crucial as if you have only one skimmer line.

There is a minimum flow rate for the SWG to work correctly, but it isn't all that high and you will most likely exceed it with room to spare even on low speed.

 

[scpool]

Thanks for you response.

I found some old pictures of the original install and it looks like i have a splitter on the return line coming from the filter, and I think it runs down both sides of the pool, one for the six returns on the 40 foot side, and the other for the 2 returns at the steps on the other side of the pool.

I was wondering if you might have a look at the picture where the 3 skimmers and main drain hook into the shut off valve and into the pump. I think I only have about an inch and a half to work with if I cut the old plumming exactly where the 1.5 inch pipe starts, just after the reducer.

I was thinking of trying to extend that out 6 inches or so and then using a spin on coupler connector to make it easier the next time. (you can see I don't have a clue to the proper terminology, but I have a couple buddies offer their time when swapping out the pump....(their kids use the pool a good bit)

Any suggestions are welcome and thanks again. The whisperflo arrive tomorrow.

 

[jblizzle]

It looks like you may just have enough pipe out of the 3-way valve to up a coupler on and extend the pipe. I think is is a very good idea to put a union ("spin on coupler connector") there also so you do not run in to this issue in the future. You will probably have to add a jog to your filter as well ... while you are at is ... add another union so that you can easily pull off the pump if needed.

Unfortunately, if you are not able to get a good connection on that little stub of pipe, it looks like you may have to replace the entire manifold.

 

[mas985]

The four 1.5" suction lines will have about the same head loss as a single 3.5" line and the dual 1.5" returns will have about the same head loss as a single 2" line plus the PB used 2" on the pad so overall, that is a pretty good setup with low head loss.

It should handle the current pump just fine but you could have defintely gone with the smallest two speed pump, the WFDS-3 or 24 and still had plenty of flow rate for everything. The only difference will be in the energy efficiency. The smaller pump will use about 10% less energy overall. Not a lot and I am not sure it would be worth the hassle but you need to decide that.

Also, FWIW, the WFDS-3/24 is actually closer to your old pump and would produce about the same flow rate. The WFDS-6 will produce about 8% more flow rate than your current pump so it is a bigger pump than what you have now.

 

[scpool]

Jason and Mark, Thank you for your input/help.

I got the whisperflo late tuesday and was out beginning the install at 8am yesterday morning.

It ran well last night, 15 hours or so with a couple issues.

First is that it only seems to be running on low speed, no matter which position I put the manual switch. There were no wiring directions in the box that I saw, just some basic stuff encased in plastic.

I wired it just like the old Hayward 2hp, white on number 1 and black on number 3. The output into the pool looks just like the hayward used to look on low speed. You can hardly hear the whisperflo running. I love it.

Second issue is that, like the hayward, their are some air bubbles getting back into the pool via the return lines and I can see a little air in the basket on the pump.

I made a mistake, instead of 6 returns down the 40 foot side, there are actually 7. The first of these, closest to the pump is the one that spurts out the air bubbles, and one of the two returns at the steps also spurts a little air, although not nearly as much.

During the install I decided to eliminate/move one of the 45 degree elbows in order to only add one more total with the install, rather than the two extra I initally was going to go with. My buddie had the great idea that maybe we could "swing" the pipe with the old elbow 90 degrees and save a couple cuts/repairs. This was the 2 inch pipe between the pump and filter. Of course when we started spinning it, we heard, and saw a hairline crack, about a half inch long, where the 2 inch pipe enters the filter. We decided that the connector went in farther than the crack, so we kept going with the install. We actually thought we could make a you-tube video on how a couple idiots try and swap out a pool pump. It took 10 hours, included two trips to the store, and I could barely move afterwards. Man do I wish my PB was still around.

We are going to have our electric guy, the same one who did the original pool install with our PB, come out and look at the way I wired the pump and make sure everything is safe. After the install I noticed a "gouge" on the side of the motor where it looks like it was stabbed with something in transit. The box was torn in that spot when UPS delivered it but I missed the "gouge" until today, it's about the size of 4 capital AAAA's back to back, half a small fingernail or so.....

Will update with what he says, meanwhile here are a couple pics. First time ever tried anything close to this......

Thanks again.

 

[jblizzle]

Well, you certainly have plenty of extra pipe now :lol:

I am unsure about the wiring myself so, hopefully the electrician will get that straightened out for you ... there are a few post about this recently though.

What do the bubbles in the pump look like? Are they small and stationary at the top or larger and more churning?
If you are seeing larger/churning bubbles in the pump and returning to the pool, that usually means a suction side air leak ... and since you saw this with your old pump as well and did not change much of the suction side plumbing ... that seems likely.

First thing to check would be the drain plugs and the strainer lid on the pump.
If they seem fine, you may be able to track it down by running a hose over each of the connections of your manifold (all the valve joints etc) for a few minutes to see if the bubbles in the pump clear out.
Do you see any water come out of the suction pipes anywhere, especially when the pump is turned off?

 

[scpool]

Thanks Jason, Now that made me smile!

We couldn't figure out how to make up the extra height of the whisperflo over the superpump without dropping it off the pad... It would have been something to see us, and just how truely clueless we were with the piping connections and unions.

The electric man called back and will be here around 8:30 in morning.

On a positive note, the swg is going full board, and the pool water had its old "sparkle" back when I saw it this morning, even though it's still not "open" yet. I had not been able to run the hayward as much as needed and was fighting alge build up the last few weeks.

The whisperflo had enough power to backwash the filter, but the flow out the waste pipe was just like the old superpump on low speed, but ran the indicator clear and cleaned out all the pine pollen and other junk that had been collecting in it this spring. I'll give it another cleaning once/if I get the hi speed function working tomorrow.

Looking forward to getting back out there.

No leaks anywhere that I can see, but will check closer, and try the water idea.

Thanks again.

 

[scpool]

Electric man hooked up 2 speed switch without a problem this morning. It's great to have both speeds working and quite as a mouse. There was a black wire attached to the back of the switch that need to be attached to the black wire coming in from the panel, and that was it, he unscrewed the black wire coming in from the circuit panel, and wing nutted it to the black switch wire, presto..... The switch also had a white wire already hooked up to position 3-4, and yellow wire hooked up to position 2. I added a white wire coming in from the panel to position 1, but missed the black switch wire all together.....it was nutted off by itself just waiting to be matched up with the black wire from the panel......

So all is safe, still have some bubbles I'll look into later today, and the pump is now truely hi/lo.....

Thanks again for you help.