Ranch house pool, Pelham Court ·
A 1970s equipment pad, rebuilt
A rusty single-speed pump from the 1970s, a weeping filter and a tangle of patched pipe. Rebuilt in a day; the running cost dropped by more than half.
- What we did
- New variable-speed pump and sand filter, re-plumbed, timer programmed
- Time
- 1 day
- Visits
- 2 visits
- Cost
- $3,250 all in
The water
- Pump power
- Before: 1,700 WAfter: 310 W at night
- Filter pressure
- Before: 28 psiAfter: 12 psi
- Noise by the patio
- Before: Shout to talkAfter: Hardly heard
The pump on this pad had been running since the house was built: a single-speed motor that roared through dinner on the patio and a sand filter weeping at its clamp, joined by fifty years of patches.
We took it back to the slab. A variable-speed pump, a new sand filter and fresh plumbing with proper valves went in the same day, and we set the pump to run slow and long at night. The first electricity bill came in at less than half of the last summer’s.