Swimming pool Pump

Aside from the swimming pool itself, there are three important items of equipment that nearly all outdoor swimming pools have and they are the pump, the heater, and the filtration system (filter).

All three of these components work together. The pump circulates the water and, in so doing, it passes it through the filter which cleans and cleanses it and the heater which increases the water temperature. These three components work together to ensure that the water in a swimming pool is healthy and at a suitable bathing temperature.

Pumps

There are several different pump options available and, depending upon the size of your swimming pool and the objectives that you have for your heating and filtration system, different factors will influence your choice.

Naturally the larger the pool, the greater the volume of water that will require pumping. More water equals a bigger and more powerful pump, but then there are the heater and filtration considerations and this is where careful thought needs to go into pump selection.

In buying you pool equipment you have two options. One is to buy the pump, heater and filter separately, but the other is to buy what is often referred to as a combo. This is where you buy a pump and filter combination, or a pump and heater combination.

For small to medium sized garden pools this option can save money, ensure compatibility of components and take up less space. There are many options available from different suppliers and manufacturers if you choose this solution.

What sized pump do you need?

When selecting a suitable pump, probably the most obvious question to which you need an answer is, how powerful does the pump need to be?.

Pumps are sold with HP or KW ratings which indicate their power level, but the figures, e.g. 0.75HP, do not tell you a great deal about the pump or what it can do in relation to a swimming pool. For this reason the performance figure that counts is how much water the pump can move in an hour and this is usually given in cubic metres (or feet).

Knowing this figure is of course only part of the equation, the next thing that you need to know is how much water is in the pool. You can easily work this out by multiplying the Width X Length X Depth of the pool to get a cubic volume. Once you have this figure you need to get a pump that has the power to circulate all of the water in the pool in an eight hour cycle. Therefore dividing the pool's capacity by eight will give a reasonable indication of the circulation rate in cubic metres per hour.

A further factor that also needs to be included in this decision is the resistance of the pipes. The longer the pipes the greater the resistance and this also plays a part in pool pump selection. As a general guide most home pools have a resistance of around 10m to 13 m.

Most online pump sellers will provide (on their websites) tables and calculators that allow you to make a reasonably accurate estimation of the pump that you require based on pool capacity and circulation rate (in cubic metres). These are then equated to power outputs and from this you can determine which pumps are suitable for your installation.