On Saturday, May 3, 2014 1:15:05 PM UTC-4, sms wrote:
On 5/3/2014 8:37 AM, gonjah wrote:

On 5/3/2014 9:11 AM, trader_4 wrote:

On Friday, May 2, 2014 6:49:08 PM UTC-4, sms wrote:

The pool store I go to is always pushing "PoolProof"



http://nisuscorp.com/pool-spa/products/poolproof which is basically



borate dissolved in a liquid. I was reading



http://www.poolspanews.com/efflorescence/borate-chemistry.aspx and it



seems to confirm the benefits of borate.







Of course anything sold for a pool has an enormous mark-up but borate



can be purchased at Walmart as 20 Mule Team Borax. I would need about 30



boxes (76 ounces each, $4) and about eight gallons of acid (about $5



each) to bring the Borate level up to 50ppm and the ph back down. To use



PoolProof would cost me about $300 if no acid was necessary (supposedly



PoolProof liquid is ph neutral) while pure borate powder raises the ph).







The benefits of a 50 ppm borate level are supposed to be a more stable



ph, less algae problems, and the ability to run the pool pump for fewer



hours. That last one could really make it pay for itself. Two hours less



a day of the pump running would probably save me $75 per month.







Either you must have a very big pump or your electric rates

must be sky high, or both. A 1hp pump is about 1.5KW. Here in NJ we

have some of the highest electric rates and it costs about 25c an

hour to run. Two hours a day, would be ~$15 a month.



If it's costing that much to run the pump, have you considered

switching the motor to one that is dual speed? Running it at

half speed for twice as long can cut the electric usage in half.

I'm in the process of doing that right now.







I'm going that route when my pump quits, but it's a fairly new pump,



I calculated the cost of running the pump 4 hours a day versus 6 hours a

day.



Why 4 vs 6? If you use run the pump at half speed, it shoule be 3 vs 6.
And running at half speed, instead of pulling 9.3A, it would probably
pull more like 2 amps. You have to run it twice as long to move the
same amount of water, but even so, it winds up using less than half
the electricity.



I have a one speed, 1.5HP pump rated at 230V/9.3A. It pushes me into the

top tier of rates which is 36�/KWhour.


I guess the folks where you live, CA I presume, let the idiot hippies
take control. Sadly, at the moment, that's where we're all headed.



It draws 2.139 KW. So I'm paying

77�/hour. If I cut cut down the pump time by two hours a day I'd save

$46.20 per month. So the $75 was wrong. It will costs about $160 to

bring the borate level to 50ppm. So it will take a little less than four

months to pay for itself. But the other benefit is being able to have a

lower chlorine level so there are also savings in chlorine, probably

about $20 per month.

And still without regard to the borate, if you;re paying 36c/kwh, a dual
speed pump would appear to be at the top of the list. Here in NJ, with
18c kwh rates the new pump I just put in will pay for itself in less
than 2 years. And I would
think that hippie states might have utility rebates that would make it
pay off in a year.