Pump on / off Question

[BoernePoolGuy]

My timer sets my pump to run at high speed from 1300 to 1900, and then turns it to low speed the remainder of the time. Is it necessary and/or detrimental to run the pump 24hrs a day?

I am new to this system and pool ownership, and have been told the pump we have is a very low energy pump. It is a Hayward Northstar, 2HP pump. I dont mind running it 24hrs a day if it is beneficial, but I dont want to waste money if it isn't necessary.

Looking for opinions on whether or not I should be manually turning it completely off at some point. Thanks!

 

[jblizzle]

That is likely way longer than you need to be running the pump, although the only thing that running it that long hurts is your wallet.

Read this:
pool-school/pump_run_time

 

[BoernePoolGuy]

Awesome, thank you for the link.

Was looking for something like that. Cant seem to set the timer to do an on / off schedule, just a low / high. Ill reinvestigate when I get home later.

 

[BoernePoolGuy]

Is there any reason to be running the pump on high, other than maybe to move water around more when trying to balance chemicals, etc?

It is a 30K gallon SWG pool.

 

[jblizzle]

High speed might be needed for a suction cleaner, or if the skimming is not good enough on low.

If you only have 1 mechanical timer it may just be able to select speed and not power on/off. If you get the model, we may be able to figure out if you could change the wiring for the timer to just control on/off and you could maybe add a manual switch to select speed. Just leave it on low and only flip it on high when you are backwashing or vacuuming.