Questions about a Hayward Heatpump Heater

[dbdubb28]

Hello All!
I picked up a 1-2 year old Hayward Heatpump last night, the model on the tag is HCB95BTA and I have a couple of questions. I was able to get the user manual from Haywards website and am learning quite a bit. One of my questions is they specify the need to have 2ft of clearance on all sides of the heater. I'm curious what peoples experience has been here. The location I was planning to place it would have that clearance on 3 of the 4 sides, but the fourth side would only have about a foot up to the wall.
Second question, I have a 2 speed Hayward 1.5HP Xstream pump and was wondering if anyone might know how many GPM this pump puts out on Low speed? The specs on the heater tag have a min of 30GPM and a max of 75GPM. The pump specs I found, only state 100GPM (I'm assuming on high), so I'm hoping the low speed will be within the range of the heater?
Regardless does anyone have suggestions on how to handle flow rate based on these ratings?

Any other gotcha's I should take into consideration?

 

[ajw22]

Put in a heater bypass so you can adjust the flow rate into the heater and bypass water as needed around it.

Heater Bypass - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

Heat pump needs airflow around it to extract heat from ambient air. The clearance gives sufficient air circulation so it doesn’t sit in stagnant air. The efficiency of the HP will be compromised with inadequate clearance.

 

[dbdubb28]

This is great advice, thank you! I will be putting a bypass in when I do the plumbing. Any thoughts on the pumps GPM flow rate when its running on Low? I wish I could find the spec for this!
Also if the pump is pushing 100GPM on high, I assume it will create back pressure. Is the norm to run these heaters with your pump on low?

 

[revitup]

Regarding clearance around the unit, my pb was going to position it 1’ from the house . I insisted that they move it out 2’ as the manual specified and got a lot of push back. They insisted that they do it all the time with no issues. I had to contact Hayward and determine that my warranty was dependent on it being installed per manufacturers specifications. Yours being used and likely no warranty, I’d still maintain 2’ if at all possible.
One more thing, it’s going to be difficult to service with only a foot of clearance.

 

[dbdubb28]

Thinking thru this further, if you ran the pump on high at 100GPM, would you just open the bypass half way?

 

[ajw22]

You need to see if low speed on your pump gives adequate flow to the HP.

Those GPM flows are unrestricted and not what your pump really does given the head restrictions in your plumbing.

You need to experiment with your flow settings and see what works best.

 

[dbdubb28]

Ok thank you.