New Home, Old Pool

[Learning]

Recently bought a house built in the 60's with a cute little inground pool. Prior owners were unable to provide much information on the history or technical details. All we knew is that it had tadpoles in it when we moved in!

We've had a steep learning curve, but I have the basics of what I know in my signature.

We managed to get the pool up and running, and clear. We did change the sand in the filter, which really helped, but now the pump motor has died.

Folks at the pool store tell us that the 3/4 motor is too little for our pool and that we should go up to a 1.5.

Since we are still trying to figure out how everything works, we are wondering how everything connects. Should we change the filter at the same time as the motor? Are we going to need to change the pipes?

Cost is a factor.

 

[JVTrain]

Welcome to TFP!

For your size pool, a 3/4 HP pump is actually just fine. A 1.5 HP pump may provide too high of a flow rate for your current filter to adequately filter properly. If the filter is working and you just replaced the sand, no need to replace the filter. Sounds like you're getting upsold for no reason. You could also look at a 2 speed pump that would save $ on electricity if you run on low speed more often. The only way I'd go larger than your 3/4 HP is if it was a 2 speed or variable speed pump that would actually consume less power on low speed. Two speed pumps are slightly more expensive than their single speed counterparts and variable speed are more expensive that 2 speed. In your location, I doubt you'd recover the costs on a variable speed, but a 2 speed might be worth it for the flexibility and power savings.

If the "wet end" of the pump is fine, only replace the motor itself, not the whole pump. Also... make sure it's not simply a blown motor capacitor, which could be a <$50 part to fix the motor.

I have a 1 HP, single speed pump on my 32K gallon pool and it's plenty. Your piping is fine. No need to change even if you did increase the motor HP, especially with the cost for and inground pool to change underground plumbing.

 

[Learning]

Thanks for the information & the welcome. Living in a rural area & not wanting to let the pool go too long without a pump, we got a Flotec 1 HP model #AT251001-01
Motor C48J2PA105C1.

Still working on getting it hooked up. Wish us luck!

 

[JVTrain]

That pump should be fine. Keep in mind that in order to maintain sanitation alone, you really only need to run the pump about 4 hours per day. If you need more skimming action to remove leaves, etc, then you should run the pump longer. Check out this article on pump run time for more info. Can save some $$ on those electric bills. Pool School - Determine Pump Run Time

 

[YippeeSkippy]

In the meantime while you're working on the pump, remember you can add plain unscented bleach to the pool and just manually brush it around to mix it in. This might help avoid any problems or at least minimize them while the pump and filter are off-line.

Maddie