When you bought your swimming pool, you knew the summer fun involved additional costs. First in line is the cost of the pool. Next there is maintenance and pool chemicals. Then you received your summer electric bills.

You cannot eliminate the electric costs of running your pool, but you can minimize them. Swimming pool pumps consume a lot of electricity, second only to home air conditioning. Is your swimming pool pump sized correctly? The larger the pump the greater your maintenance costs will be. Most private residential pools require .75 horsepower pumps or less. Consider the following chart.

Hours   .5 HP	.75 HP	1 HP	1.5 HP	2 HP

4	70	105	133	184	239

6	105	157	200	276	358

8	140	209	267	368	477

10	174	262	334	460	597

12	209	314	400	552	716

kWh per month - multiply by your electric rate for dollar figure
Source: San Diego Gas & Electric Co.

Reducing the size of your next swimming pool pump by even .25 horsepower will have a significant impact on your electric use. But you say you need a large pump to circulate and filter the water frequently. Generally if your swimming pool water recycles once every 24 hours, it should be adequate.

Many pool owners run the pump much longer than necessary. Four to six hours a day is usually sufficient. Remember you don’t have to run the pump constantly for this 4-6 hour period. If you tend to get bugs collecting overnight, run the pump for a few hours at mid-morning then again for a few hours in the afternoon or early evening. In between your filtering, use your skimmer net for any surface debris that gets in.

Make sure to monitor and adjust chemical levels as required. If the water is properly balanced and is still cloudy with your reduced filtering, add filtering time in .5 hour increments until you reach an optimal filtering time. Any amount of filtering time reduced will save you money. It’s worth a little trial and error to find your lowest required recirculation time. Do the math, and then save some money.

If your current swimming pool pump is nearing replacement, consider a high efficiency, two speed pump at the correct horsepower rating. With a two speed pump you normally run the pump on low except for vacuuming and backwashing. The low speed is much quieter and consumes much less electricity.

Gregory Fort is a partner with Pool-Pockets - Your Pool Toy Storage Solution