Thoughts on pump and heater selection

[Gopokes okc]

We are getting ready to have our pool installed in the coming weeks. It is a 16x39 fiberglass pool that only goes to 6 foot deep, ends up being 14,000 gallons. I want to go ahead and upgrade to a variable speed pump, and bigger heater. The installer is giving me the option of buying them myself, and he will just knock the price off of what he pays for them. I am looking at the Jandy JXI400N for the heater, and Epump. I think that the 400btu will be overkill, but would rather it be bigger than too small. I'm not sure about the pump, and the installer isn't giving me much guidance, only saying that the single speed one they normally install is enough, but i can use whatever one I want. I wanted to get some feedback about this setup to see if I'm way off base. (Pic of what the pool will look like below)

Thanks,
Donnie

 

[Gopokes okc]

Just realized I posted this in the wrong place, can someone move it for me?

 

[Pauls234]

Not sure if this is the wrong place....

For the heater, it is best to go as big as you can afford. The incremental cost for a larger one is not that high, but it will heat your pool much faster. I have a 400k BTU heater and love it! Heats my 20K gallons about 2 degrees per hour. This means that I don't have to keep it running to maintain temps, usually just turn it on early in the AM on days we plan to swim.

FYI - Raypak is the brand that is generally recommended and gets a lot of love around here.

 

[Gopokes okc]

Right on, it landed in the pool chemistry section, and I thought the pump section would be more appropriate. When i used some of the calculators, it came out to needing just over 200k btu, so I thought 400 would be plenty of overkill. Any thoughts on the pump? I was looking at the Jandy brand mostly because that's what he normally uses and has had good luck with them. I'm pretty sure I want to use a variable speed pump, but am still learning about all of this and wasn't sure if I should look at something different.

 

[Pauls234]

I don't know about Jandy specifically other than to say there seems to be lots of satisfied users of the brand in general.

Variable speed pumps are favored around here because they will typically more than make up for their higher price in electric savings. This was not the case with me though because my electric rates are pretty low and I was able to get my pump new for around $125 or something ridiculous like that. I think an SWG may make the variable speed even more beneficial as you will be running your pump for more hours than usual so the lower speed will lead to big savings, but I don't have an SWG so not certain on that.

Definitely do a search on variable speed pumps and you will come across some detailed cost benefit analysis, factoring in electric pricing, etc.