Hi,
Thanks for your comments so far.
I have literally just bought the house, so have no idea what it was like before. It's a Hayward I believe, 1.5hp, and quite possibly the original pump. did seem a little noisy originally, but once I cleared the large amount of leaves and seeds for the traps, the noise changed noticably, and it SEEMS to sound ok to me, if possibly a little loader than I would have thought.
One small "problem" is that I seem to have self clean pop up nozzles in the pool, and when certain of them pop up, just for a few seconds, I get a slight pipe "hammering" noise from the pipework, what might that be? Also I seem to have 3 returns in the walls of the pool, only 1 of which seems to have a flow, the one furthest from the skimmer, but the pop ups seems to have adequate pressure. Is that normal?
With regards shade, was thinking of boxing the pump, and some of the rest of the pool equipment in, to keep it a little shaded, anbd to keep noise down. Is that a good idea, or will it get to hot?
Thanks in advance
(Stil waiting for testing kit, ordered from ebay, one of the
ones you suggest for only $52