We caught the very end of our first pool season at a house we moved into last year and are looking to make some changes to the way everything is setup. Currently we have a pool and inground spa, both gunite, that are on completely separate systems. Both systems are just manually controlled, and only the spa has a heater. The heater we had to replace on move in as it died just before we moved into the house. We replaced it with a 400k btu spa-rite gas heater. When the pool people were over replacing the heater off handedly they mentioned that our setup is pretty duplicative and could be simplified more.
That said, what we're thinking of doing is trying to switch the system so we have one pump, one filter and one heater for the entire setup. This would effectively remove one of our pumps and one filter. We also would want to add a computerized system so that it can change where the water is going (pool vs spa) as well as manage temperature, on/off status, etc. from a smart app. We were also thinking of doing a salt water conversion while we're doing all of this. The idea would be the system could control which intake the water is coming from and which output it is going to. This way we could also heat the pool (just to get it up a couple of degrees sometimes) with the same heater as the spa, obviously both couldn't be heated at the same time.
Our equipment pad is attached as a photo. Just to the left of it is a circuit break panel for everything, where you see the wires from the pool side going up to. We do have two natural gas pipe drops as you which you can see the empty pad in the pool side. The previous owners had before a specific pool heater too, but it failed too.
Our goal is to keep it so that the systems can continue to work independent of each other, so we could keep the spa open in the winter, but have the pool fully closed. We weren't able to keep it open this winter since there is no freeze protection so we'd need to basically have the pump always running. Other thoughts is if we should get a variable speed pump now or if we should just wait for our current pump(s) to die. Other thoughts:
What do you think about our plans? We haven't yet worked with anyone to get quotes, but any recommendations on if what we're doing is logical, smart and if so any specific equipment recommendations?
Thanks for all the help and thoughts!
Daum
That said, what we're thinking of doing is trying to switch the system so we have one pump, one filter and one heater for the entire setup. This would effectively remove one of our pumps and one filter. We also would want to add a computerized system so that it can change where the water is going (pool vs spa) as well as manage temperature, on/off status, etc. from a smart app. We were also thinking of doing a salt water conversion while we're doing all of this. The idea would be the system could control which intake the water is coming from and which output it is going to. This way we could also heat the pool (just to get it up a couple of degrees sometimes) with the same heater as the spa, obviously both couldn't be heated at the same time.
Our equipment pad is attached as a photo. Just to the left of it is a circuit break panel for everything, where you see the wires from the pool side going up to. We do have two natural gas pipe drops as you which you can see the empty pad in the pool side. The previous owners had before a specific pool heater too, but it failed too.
Our goal is to keep it so that the systems can continue to work independent of each other, so we could keep the spa open in the winter, but have the pool fully closed. We weren't able to keep it open this winter since there is no freeze protection so we'd need to basically have the pump always running. Other thoughts is if we should get a variable speed pump now or if we should just wait for our current pump(s) to die. Other thoughts:
- We'd likely keep the System3 DE S7D75 as the filter for everything.
- The two pumps we have are USQ1102 (1HP, 1.25 SF, 3450 RPM) on the pool side, USQ1072 (0.75HP, 1.27 SF, 3450 RPM) on the spa side.
- There is a bubbler for the spa, it's next to where the heater is in the photo
- We have a polaris too on the pool side.
- While doing these updates we likely will want to raise the equiptment off the ground as it currently sits in a kinda "hole" which can get a bit wet at times. By raising it we could also try to insulate it some for the winter.
What do you think about our plans? We haven't yet worked with anyone to get quotes, but any recommendations on if what we're doing is logical, smart and if so any specific equipment recommendations?
Thanks for all the help and thoughts!
Daum
