Large System Variable Speed Retrofit Ideas

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R

robinasu

0
Jun 23, 2014
47
CA
Hello all, I'm hoping you can help point me in the right direction. We picked up a new home in California with medium sized pool. I still don't have the # of gallons. We get into the 30 cents per Kw pretty quick and I'd like to explore a variable speed (ECM DC motor) pump or pumps. Currently the system is as follows:

One 1hp pump for a waterfall; dedicated supply/return
One 1hp pump for spa jets; dedicated supply/return
One 3/4hp pump for the Polaris pool sweep; dedicated supply/return

One 1/2hp filter pump flowing through a Pentair cartridge filter, then the a Pentair heater. There doesn't appear to be a heater bypass.
After the heater there's a Pentair intellichlor.

The system controller is a Pentair intellitouch i9+3.

The system piping is all 2.5" or 3".

My questions to the TFP collective are:

1) What is the best energy saving strategy here? Combine as many pumps into one big pump like a pentair constant pressure pump?
2) Skip all the repiping and upgrade the pumps that are used the most?
3) Is a heater bypass worth the trouble?

Thanks for your help.

If there is an easier way to share pictures I can do that. The size limit of the forum attachment tools is limiting.

-Rob
 
There is very little you can do to improve the waterfall pump or spa pump. You can get an expensive pump and save perhaps 10-15% of the electricity, but nothing other than not running them is going to save a significant amount of electricity.

You can save a great deal of electricity on the pool cleaner by switching to a robotic pool cleaner. Short of that there is little you can do here.

You should be able to save more than 50% of the cost of running the circulation pump by getting a variable speed. However this is already the smallest pump so there is not as much to save as there might have been.

A heater bypass won't save a great deal, but then it doesn't cost a great deal either. I would do that.

Combining all of the pumps into a single pump will involve significant amounts of re-plumbing and thus expense, adds complexity (lots of pump speed changing), and is unlikely to work as well as what you have now.
 
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