This post was split from a different thread here. TheBlizzles
Running the pump to get clear water is a 'reactive' approach. There's plenty of research that show that commercial pools generally need a 6-hour turnover and a residential every 12 hours. The temptation with variable speed pumps is to get the maximum energy savings by slowing down as much as possible - heck, some of them even have a watt meter in the display. I watched a buddy (homeowner) of mine install a VS pump and then knock the speed down until he just had flow over a water feature and had the lowest wattage - no account of turnover. He found the results of his folly some days later when the pool started to go cloudy. Now he has to chase the problem and get the pool back in balance.
To use another analogy, would you buy a car without a speedometer?
Running the pump to get clear water is a 'reactive' approach. There's plenty of research that show that commercial pools generally need a 6-hour turnover and a residential every 12 hours. The temptation with variable speed pumps is to get the maximum energy savings by slowing down as much as possible - heck, some of them even have a watt meter in the display. I watched a buddy (homeowner) of mine install a VS pump and then knock the speed down until he just had flow over a water feature and had the lowest wattage - no account of turnover. He found the results of his folly some days later when the pool started to go cloudy. Now he has to chase the problem and get the pool back in balance.
To use another analogy, would you buy a car without a speedometer?