Help tame my pig

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mole

Member
Oct 23, 2008
158
Western NY
I have a 24' above ground pool with a 3/4"hp pump. It's the biggest energy pig I have. The conventional wisdom from the local pool supplier is to run the pump 8 hrs/ day on a timer. This is about 9kwh/d, which is ridiculous in my mind. Over the last 2-3 years, I've played with the timer and found I could get by with running the pump about 3 hrs/ day. Last summer I came up with a better scheme. I run the pump for 3-4 hours every 2-3 days when I chlorinate it. On the day I run the pump, my wife or I make a big whirlpool. This brings any dirt to the center of the pool, where the center drain removes most of it in 3-4 hours of the pump running. (This method wouldn't work without a center drain.) The problem I have is that I'm bypassing the 24 hr timer and pugging in the pump in manual mode when I do this. It works fine when we remember to unplug the pump 3-4hrs after making the whirlpool. Yesterday was the 2nd time we forgot and let the pump run continuously. One "oops" or two over the summer undoes most of the hard fought savings. So now I'm looking for some sort of timer that I can plug into the outdoor GFCI outlet that's weather proof and adjustable in the 3-4 hour range. This would be something my wife can easily turn on manually that will shut off the pump in 3-4 hours, without messing around with the pins of a 24hr timer. I installed an Intermatic 6hr manual mechanical timer on my wood boiler that would work fine, but I'm not sure its a good idea to install one of those outdoors. Any suggestions?
 
Hi;
On topic: Many pool pumps are over-powered; circulating a lower power pump continuously can be more effective than trying to ram water through narrow diameter pipes with a big pump.

Possibly off topic, but:
I had a 40' x 20' in ground pool with a 1 hp pump, sand filter and brominator.
We ran the 1 hp pump 18-24 h/day to keep ahead of greening, and used a heavy chlorine shock at the start and end of the season in addition to the brominator. It was a ~$2000/season habit, including pump electricity
This spring I converted it to a natural vegetation biofilter, with a 1/4 horsepower immersion pump circulating continuously.
Advantages:
-less energy
-no chlorine or bromine
-much quieter
-alot more interesting to look at and be around
-much less work, with no fussing with filters or skimmers or turning the pump on or off
-no guilt over poisoning toads with bromine. I was a hypocrite buying organic vegetables and avoiding lawn treatments, while dumping ~20 kg of bromine compound into the pool every year.

Disadvantages:
It is not a crystal clear pool anymore, more of a swimming pond, but it is still surprisingly clear (I can see the 10' bottom).
It may become a fish pond once my kids are grown.

Cost:
$2700 for a 40' x 65' EPDM 45 mil pond liner (I had to replace the liner anyway)
$800 for 8 tons of pea gravel and 5 tons of river stone cobble for the biofilter (my nearest good source was a 35 min drive away)
$240 for some rubber patio pavers to make a path to the entrance
$80 for two semi-toy solar powered bubblers, that are fun but probably not doing alot.

It was about 5 weekends of work to pump out the old water, remove the old liner, dig out ~50 wheel barrows of dirt for the biofilter, place the underlay (recycled pool tarp), lay the pool liner (with 20 friends help), put in the pea gravel and river stone.
The biofilter is ~240 sq. ft, on two sides of the pool, roughly 30% of the area of the pool. It is 16" deep, filled with pea gravel, with the river cobble on top. The 1/4 hp immersion pump takes water from the bottom of the deep end and puts it into the biofilter. The water drains back over the edge of the pool in several places.
The only stressful part was that the pool is inground with steel walls and shotcrete base, but the vertical walls are supported by hydrostatic pressure. So once I took the water out, I was pushing to get water back in, to avoid a collapse.
So far there are no signs of mosquitoes, the water circulation is sufficient. There is no bad smell. As nutrients reach the pool, the vegetation filter takes them up and grows. The biofilm surface area in the vegetation filter is immense, compared to a sand filter. The entire pool volume passes through the biofilter is just under a day.
Now I am puttering away, trying different plants in the biofilter to see what grows, building floating islands to grow plants, installing pretty rocks etc.
On a strict financial basis, I think the payback will be ~2 years, on the electrical, chemical and servicing costs.

I am not sure I would do this if I had alot of dirty kids jumping in and out all day (like I had when my kids were smaller).
But for the family and friends to go for a dip, it is lovely so far, and I am really enjoying watching an ecosystem establish.
cheers, Doug
 
We have livestock so I need to keep water thawed for them <32F. So I bought two of these to tame my winter energy pigs.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006LYHG42/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

They are all electronic ( I did not want anything with pins ) and can be programmed for 7 days a week. The description says they will run up to a 3/4 hp motor ( 559W ). I ran a 250W stock tank heater without issues. The timer was outside all winter also. They also have a manual override so you can run it all of the time such as during a polar vortex. :mad:

Scott
 
We have a pool also. In general, the hotter the weather= warmer water= pool circ runs more. So my wife has a plan of how many hours she wants it run per day. But, we also don't like a timer, but we use the timer on top of the stove. Set it for 3 hours and it will remind us to manually turn the pool off. Just my 2 cents.
 
Hi;
On topic: Many pool pumps are over-powered; circulating a lower power pump continuously can be more effective than trying to ram water through narrow diameter pipes with a big pump.

Possibly off topic, but:
I had a 40' x 20' in ground pool with a 1 hp pump, sand filter and brominator.
We ran the 1 hp pump 18-24 h/day to keep ahead of greening, and used a heavy chlorine shock at the start and end of the season in addition to the brominator. It was a ~$2000/season habit, including pump electricity
This spring I converted it to a natural vegetation biofilter, with a 1/4 horsepower immersion pump circulating continuously.
Advantages:
-less energy
-no chlorine or bromine
-much quieter
-alot more interesting to look at and be around
-much less work, with no fussing with filters or skimmers or turning the pump on or off
-no guilt over poisoning toads with bromine. I was a hypocrite buying organic vegetables and avoiding lawn treatments, while dumping ~20 kg of bromine compound into the pool every year.

Disadvantages:
It is not a crystal clear pool anymore, more of a swimming pond, but it is still surprisingly clear (I can see the 10' bottom).
It may become a fish pond once my kids are grown.

Cost:
$2700 for a 40' x 65' EPDM 45 mil pond liner (I had to replace the liner anyway)
$800 for 8 tons of pea gravel and 5 tons of river stone cobble for the biofilter (my nearest good source was a 35 min drive away)
$240 for some rubber patio pavers to make a path to the entrance
$80 for two semi-toy solar powered bubblers, that are fun but probably not doing alot.

It was about 5 weekends of work to pump out the old water, remove the old liner, dig out ~50 wheel barrows of dirt for the biofilter, place the underlay (recycled pool tarp), lay the pool liner (with 20 friends help), put in the pea gravel and river stone.
The biofilter is ~240 sq. ft, on two sides of the pool, roughly 30% of the area of the pool. It is 16" deep, filled with pea gravel, with the river cobble on top. The 1/4 hp immersion pump takes water from the bottom of the deep end and puts it into the biofilter. The water drains back over the edge of the pool in several places.
The only stressful part was that the pool is inground with steel walls and shotcrete base, but the vertical walls are supported by hydrostatic pressure. So once I took the water out, I was pushing to get water back in, to avoid a collapse.
So far there are no signs of mosquitoes, the water circulation is sufficient. There is no bad smell. As nutrients reach the pool, the vegetation filter takes them up and grows. The biofilm surface area in the vegetation filter is immense, compared to a sand filter. The entire pool volume passes through the biofilter is just under a day.
Now I am puttering away, trying different plants in the biofilter to see what grows, building floating islands to grow plants, installing pretty rocks etc.
On a strict financial basis, I think the payback will be ~2 years, on the electrical, chemical and servicing costs.

I am not sure I would do this if I had alot of dirty kids jumping in and out all day (like I had when my kids were smaller).
But for the family and friends to go for a dip, it is lovely so far, and I am really enjoying watching an ecosystem establish.
cheers, Doug
0
Sounds like a really cool project! I think for the time being I'm gonna keep my pool as a plain old swimming pool. Thanks for the suggestion
 
We have livestock so I need to keep water thawed for them <32F. So I bought two of these to tame my winter energy pigs.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006LYHG42/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

They are all electronic ( I did not want anything with pins ) and can be programmed for 7 days a week. The description says they will run up to a 3/4 hp motor ( 559W ). I ran a 250W stock tank heater without issues. The timer was outside all winter also. They also have a manual override so you can run it all of the time such as during a polar vortex. :mad:

Scott
Thanks, Scott. I didn't explain well. It's not so much the pins I'm against. I don't want a 24 hr timer because I want to manually turn on the timer for or 3 or 4 hrs at whatever time I make the whirlpool. Could be morning or evening.
 
We have a pool also. In general, the hotter the weather= warmer water= pool circ runs more. So my wife has a plan of how many hours she wants it run per day. But, we also don't like a timer, but we use the timer on top of the stove. Set it for 3 hours and it will remind us to manually turn the pool off. Just my 2 cents.
I have a timer on top of my stove too! I suppose that's better than what I'm doing right now!! Thanks for the input.
 
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I have a 24' above ground pool with a 3/4"hp pump. It's the biggest energy pig I have. The conventional wisdom from the local pool supplier is to run the pump 8 hrs/ day on a timer. This is about 9kwh/d, which is ridiculous in my mind. Over the last 2-3 years, I've played with the timer and found I could get by with running the pump about 3 hrs/ day. Last summer I came up with a better scheme. I run the pump for 3-4 hours every 2-3 days when I chlorinate it. On the day I run the pump, my wife or I make a big whirlpool. This brings any dirt to the center of the pool, where the center drain removes most of it in 3-4 hours of the pump running. (This method wouldn't work without a center drain.) The problem I have is that I'm bypassing the 24 hr timer and pugging in the pump in manual mode when I do this. It works fine when we remember to unplug the pump 3-4hrs after making the whirlpool. Yesterday was the 2nd time we forgot and let the pump run continuously. One "oops" or two over the summer undoes most of the hard fought savings. So now I'm looking for some sort of timer that I can plug into the outdoor GFCI outlet that's weather proof and adjustable in the 3-4 hour range. This would be something my wife can easily turn on manually that will shut off the pump in 3-4 hours, without messing around with the pins of a 24hr timer. I installed an Intermatic 6hr manual mechanical timer on my wood boiler that would work fine, but I'm not sure its a good idea to install one of those outdoors. Any suggestions?


Hi,
You might look into a solar powered pumping system.

This one requires replacing the pump and adding a couple of PV panels, and its not real cheap, but it looks like it might save you several thousand KWH a year:

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/PoolHeating/PVPoolPump/PVPoolPump.htm

Gary
 
I have a timer on top of my stove too! I suppose that's better than what I'm doing right now!! Thanks for the i
I have a timer on top of my stove too! I suppose that's better than what I'm doing right now!! Thanks for the input.


everyone in the house uses that stove timer for a variety of things.it's got so now when we hear the timer going off we find out who said it. Nobody shut the timer off until they get permission from the person that set it.
 
Hi,
You might look into a solar powered pumping system.

This one requires replacing the pump and adding a couple of PV panels, and its not real cheap, but it looks like it might save you several thousand KWH a year:

http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/PoolHeating/PVPoolPump/PVPoolPump.htm

Gary

Hi Gary, Thats an interesting read. I'm not sure how much more efficient the DC pump is than an AC. My 8.6kw system produced an excess of 3700kwh last year, which includes running the pool pump intermittently as I described. I oversized the solar, not realizing that I would be able to cut my usage by 35% year over year. I'm not looking to add more solar, as it will increase my excess capacity. NY only reimburses about $.06/kwh ( avoided cost rate), so my payback would be long.
Separate topic- I'm planning to build 2or 3 of the the copper/aluminum fin hot water collectors you have on your website. Any suggestions/ experience on mounting these on a shingle roof? I noticed the ones on the site were built into walls rather than roof mount. I'm concerned about the wood rotting. I'd appreciate your thoughts.
 
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