That run time is probably on the high side, but it depends on how big your pool is. When we had an inline chlorinator we were running the filtration cycle for 8 hours a day and the cleaner for one hour a day. Since we switched to an SWG we've increased the filtration cycle to 11 hours to make sure enough chlorine is generated. In the winter it goes down to 1/2 to 2/3 of that run time. We're in the DFW area.

Sounds like you have a pretty heavy bather load on the weekends, you'll probably want to shock the pool with some bleach to get the chlorine up after a long weekend of swimming. Don't try to shock it through your chlorinator, an inline chlorinator won't dispense the chlorine quickly enough for that.

It's an 18x32 free form play pool with shallow on both ends and a deeper area in the middle. I'm guessing around 15,000 gallons? I don't have any paperwork from the builder that says exactly how many gallons.

I'll probably dial back how much I run the pumps during the week as the kids are in camp during the days and only in the pool during the evenings and weekends. We don't have any trees so very little blows into the pool.

Normally a builder will set a system to cycle the pool water once daily. 6-8 hours is a normal maximum in California. Mine is 4 for 11K gallons, 3 rain sheers and solar. Mine is running 1700 rpm's and the sweep runs 2 hours in the middle of the cycle. Plus 1/2 hour for the rain falls at 4:30 am and 11 pm. It's my alarm and my tranquilizer.

We do have daily use from April through September.
I shock with chlorine free shock by the way.

Ken

After reading these posts, you have me thinking I'm not running mine long enough. How do you really know? What are you looking for? I have a 15,000 free form pool with SWG, and a two speed pump with cart. filter. I have the timer come on early afternoon and run for an hour and a half at high speed and then run on low speed for another 2 and a half hours. I test my chemicals myself and then once every week or two take them to the local pool store. Everything is always within the limits. Again, are there other factors other than the chemical tests. The water always looks crystal clear.

Quote: "After reading these posts, you have me thinking I'm not running mine long enough. How do you really know? What are you looking for?"

As Ken said, it is recommended that you turn 100% of your water over at least once in a 24 hour period. It depends on the equipment & pipe sizes, but for most pools that's around 8 hours of run time. It is also generally accepted that it's better to turn over your pool slowly over a longer period of time. So it's better to run a long time at slow pump speeds than a short time at high speed. It's also more efficent energy-wise.

I run my pump for 3 or so hours somewhere between 11:30 and 3:00 with the ozoneator and then on low speed at night for another 3 hours around 11:30pm to 2:00am.

The standard answer is long enough to completely cycle all the water at least once. So if you have a 10,000 gallon pool the answer is however long it takes to cycle 10,000 gallons.

I run my pump for about 12-14 hours. It runs for 1 hour at 55 gallons per minute and then drops to around 15-20 gallons per minute for the rest of the time.

What I do on my pool is not the same that you would do or what your neighbor would do. Determine how much water your pump moves on average (with a moderately dirty filter) and divide by the number of gallons in your pool. Add another 30 minutes to an hour if you use it a lot or feel you need to due to some other circumstance.

and, you can get your pump turn over capacity by going to the vendor and looking at charts for you pump.

Well this is all new news to me. My pool builder didn't help me much here I'm afraid. I'm going to increase my run time by 3 more hours based on what I've read here. Just so I understand why I'm doing this though, is it to remove things I can't see, or for some other reason.