Personally, I would not trust any tool from a manufacture that is trying to sell you a pump. That is why I developed my own spreadsheet using the data published by the California Energy Commission. The manufacture tools generally use gross approximations and tend to use unrealistic scenarios plus they don't show you how the calculations are done. You can download the CEC data yourself or you can download the spreadsheet below and do the analysis yourself. Unlike the manufactures web site tools, I built a completely transparent tool open for full review so I am not trying to hide anything from the user. But it really only takes simple math to prove the case of a two speed pump in some situations. Assuming decent plumbing and using the CEC data from Curve-C, a Whisperflo WFDS-24 will produce about 42 GPM @ 380 watts while an Intelliflo will produce about 30 GPM @ 140 watts for a difference of 240 watts. This may seem like a big difference but the money saved is not all that great. In a 15k pool and a turnover per day, the Whisperflo requires 357 minutes on low speed while the Inteliflo requires 500 minutes for the same turnover. So the Whisperflo uses 2.3 kwh/day and the Inteliflo uses 1.2 kwh/day or a difference of 1.1 kwh/day. Again, it sounds big until you apply the electrical rates. So if your electricity rate is $0.07/kwh to make up the $500 cost difference between the two pumps you would need about 6500 days (>200 months) of run time before the Intelliflo starts to be more cost effective than the Whisperflo. However, you can make the case for the Intelliflo by changing some of the assumptions. For example, if the electrical rate is $0.30 like in CA and the user was running two turnovers per day, then the Intelliflo will become more cost effective than the Whisperflo after only 750 days (25 months) which makes the Intelliflo the better choice. However, some POs need to run their pumps at higher speeds for part of the day to run cleaners and/or solar so that can diminish some of the benefit. Even though we have high electricity rates here in CA, I chose the two speed because much of time I run the pump at higher speeds for solar so the benefit of the VS was not as great for me. You can see my situation in Scenario 3 of the spreadsheet. I modified a 1 HP Northstar pump to create a 1/2 HP two speed pump but was able to do that for only $120 so it would be hard for any pump to beat that lifetime cost. Anyway, you can run all of these different scenarios using the spreadsheet. Here is a link that might be useful: Pump Cost Calculator

I run mine at two different speeds. I don't know the rpms, flow rate (gals per minute) was my measure. My weekday settings are: 1-3pm (65gpm): high enough to push water through solar heater and run the automatic vacuum. 6-10pm (45gpm): super low, but high enough that I can measure flow rate with the flow meter I installed. Mine is tuned to turn over my water once. I wouldn't run during the day (peak electricity rates) except for the solar heating. On weekends #1 is longer and #2 is shorter (weekends are all off-peak pricing).

ncrealestateguy...as head loss changes, the Intelliflo VF is designed to increase or decrease speed to maintain the same flow. As a filter gets dirty, the head loss increases which decreases flow. The VF senses this decrease in flow and increases pump speed to maintain the flow setpoint. When you record your VF power, you'll find the power consumed with a dirty filter will be higher than what it is after cleaning. If your pump was a VS, 2 speed or 1 speed, you would find the power is lower with a dirty filter ( from above rmrc12 reported a 50 watt difference with a VS). This is how pool pumps (a centrifugal pump design) behave when speed is constant and head loss increases. The VF, however, increases speed as the filter gets dirty which consumes more power. When you post your power results before and after cleaning, please also post the rpm for each. Clearly, the more frequently you clean the filter, you'll notice less power difference but with an Intelliflo VF, the dirty filter power will always be higher than the clean filter power...that't the way it was designed. Hope this helps.

You should get the pump brand that matches your controller (s) this means pentair. You/we have no way of knowing how many GPM any setup will have until you put a flow meter on it or buy a pump with a flow meter in it (VF) so to benchmark calculations at this stage is rather meaningless. From my recent experience with a Jandy Epump I doubt you will be turning the pump less than 1100 RPM anyway 400 is just really really slow and isn't moving much water at all. with a drain at the bottom of an 8 ft pool youd have to work pretty hard to get trapped. Id split the main drain on a new build anyway. Sound like VS is in your future Davegvg