Added Heater, PSI increase

[Mcb]

I added a pool heater yesterday. A Mastertemp 400. After it was installed I noticed the filter pressure jumped from 10-11 to 17-18. The installer said the heater alone won't cause that to happen. If anything it should make it drop? That does not make sense does it? Since then I had to increase the suction on the pool cleaner to make it operate better.

Was it a coincidence?

 

[duraleigh]

While that does seem like quite a bit, it is a given that you have added resistance to your system and increased resistance increases the psi......never lowers it.

 

[sktn77a]

The installer said the heater alone won't cause that to happen. If anything it should make it drop?

Adding a heat exchanger with several narrow tubes is definitely going to increase the pressure, although I don't think it should increase it by that much. If your installer thinks a heater would decrease the pressure, he probably doesn't know enough about pool equipment to do the job properly and may have caused the problem!

 

[Divin Dave]

Depending on the diameter of the heater plumbing, bends and turns, and the type of material the plumbing is made of will all have a bearing on the pressure increase.
From what few heaters i have seen (living in Texas), I wouldn't be surprised to see a considerable increase.