I would not hold up a pool job on a maybe from a manufacturer. Why not go with what's available now?

Just my two cents. I wish I would have taken my own advice when it came to Operating Systems. Vista was a nightmare...

Unlike landa, I'm loving Vista. Glad I put it on when I did.

Thanks for the information as I am really leaning toward the Jandy ProEdge Builder at this point who offered the extended warranty as (opposed to others who also sell Jandy but do not). Let's hope that the company will price it "right" to get it out to the public in large numbers more quickly. And, if they offer a great warranty on the pump too it will allay a lot of the fears we consumers might have about trying something so new. Just a suggestion ;). I would really like the energy savings over time but there is still so much more to consider cost-wise in equipment options, including automated controls that would be needed to operate the pump????I assume?

As far as this pump being available this month, I wouldn't hold my breath. I have been in contact with Jandy's product manager for this pump in the past and their tech. support people both of which have claimed the wrong release date at least 3 times. Indeed the last I heard, it was to be release either "November or January" this is over a year late from when I started to track the release of this.

I can hear a lot of you saying I should have gone with the 4160 and be done with it but I wanted that 5 yr. warranty and I didn't negotiate this upfront as this was all new to me. I am still hoping I can convince the pool builder to upgrade me at just the cost difference since the current pump is only 6 months old.

A few questions for you . . .

First, is the 5 year warranty you are getting from your PB a special offer? I thought the ProEdge dealers warranty was only 3 years? I think you did the right thing going with the longer warranty on an existing pump. If you have read some of my other threads you will know this is why I will ultimately select one PB vs another. I just can't see spending so much for high-end equipment and fancy electronics only to have them fail in the first year . . . and if you know any one that has a pool it can happen. Since my pool will be for next season I am thinking I might have a chance. I don't think they will release it until January myself so as not to throw dealers into having to get up-to-speed, so to speak, until the off-season.
Second, I am guessing you are referring to the fact that the pump might not be as quiet as some of the Pentair pumps. How far away did you place your equipment from the pool wall? How far is your run to the spa? I am thinking about going to the 26-50 foot range, but hope this won't hurt the spa operation. What size plumbing did your PB use on the Suction Side and also the Discharge Side?
Third, I am thinking of requesting the same pump the 2 & 1/2 HP, is your part # SHPM 2.5 - 2? Here is a link that might be helpful:
http://www.jandy-downloads.com/pdfs/pumprefguide.pdf
Fourth, Can you please, please, help with information regarding your in-floor system as I am agonizing over this expense. What model Paramount system did you have installed. My one PB offers the current PCC200, but I do not know anyone who has this particular manufacturer's system, although I have seen much older pools (10+ that had working Paramount systems). It would be tremendously helpful to me to know if this was an upgrade to their circulation system that the PB might offer as standard or was it a total system add on? If I could get this system at a reasonable cost it would help me to finalize a decision to go forward with the pool at this time. If you would prefer to send more specifics directly, I set up a g-mail account so that I could corresponded with people on this site: NJFolks4@gmail.com.
Fifth, would you mind sharing your other Jandy equipment choices of filter, heater, lights and automation and the size of your pool. Hope you don't mind me asking, but I am trying to coordinate what would be the best in some cases while not duplicating electronics, oh and energy efficiency to keep those bills down too. I have heard about horribly high gas bills for heating here in NJ. Wow, a lot of questions, so I hope this is not too much. THANKS for any help you are willing to provide.

Sorry I didn't get back to you earlier. Got too busy to check these forums. Regarding your questions, I'll give it a try to answer what I know.
The pool builder I used was Premier Pools out of Salida california (near Modesto, CA) They are a Pro-edge dealer and one of the reasons I went with them was references and their warranty service. They said it was 5 years and is written in the contract.
Regarding the noise, I have nothing to compare it to. I tend to think that Stealth means quiet something less than a car engine at idle. That is the not the case at full speed with my Jandy pump. However at low speed it is very low noise less than a V8 at idle. The equipment is right next to the house (I live in CA so our neighbors fence is just 8 feet away) and the distance to the spa is about 35 feet. The plumbing on suction side is 21/2in and everything else is 2in.
yes on the pump size you are looking at.

Infloor - I did a lot of reading on this forum and talked to some people ultimately deciding to go with the Paramount PV3 system. My pool builder charged me $3800 if I remember correctly, an extra upgrade to the base pool. One thing that I got advice on doing was to make sure they run a pool sweep line just in case you have to shut down the infloor system (earthquakes or whatever bad things can happen in New Jersey) almost zero extra cost (they did it at no cost for me)
So far (6 months) the system is working great. They followed Paramounts recommendations for head placement and I double checked with both Paramount and while the installation was happening. Leaves, dirt etc all get cleaned well. Paramount recommends 60gpm to effectively run it however as I said before I run it at low speed (roughly 30gpm with the Stealth pump) still works for both leaves and dirt. I did check with paramount on the longevity and about the only thing to break would be the floor heads (give you a lifetime warranty) and the zone switcher (for lack of a better term). This is the device that switches zones. Those will last about 5-6 yrs and cost $300 to replace.
Last items: Heater is LXi; CL580 filter; jandy colored lights (not LED as they came out just after my lights got installed otherwise would have gone with LED); PDA 8; aquapure salt generator; The higher end control box (not sure the model number - there were two models); pool size is about 15k gallons 6.5ft deep 32ft by 17ft free form shape; one sheer decent and a 6 jet raised spa with chatterfall into the pool. Lastly, I did go with a solar heating (8 panels) system and never, never, never will heat my pool with the gas heater.... I'm sure famous last words...

Thanks so much for taking the time to reply. If you get a chance I have a follow-up question about the operating cost of the in-floor system. I am still deciding which way to go regarding equipment which will affect the choice of PB. So, your all your information is much appreciated. I have the same concerns about having the best operational speed (lowest effective speed for economy sake) that will operate an in-floor system. No word yet on the ePump. You mentioned your electricity bill dropping $85 - $90 a month when you didn't run it on high speed all the time. Any idea what the additional cost is to run the in-floor for the minimum necessary each day to clean (at least once) the pool. Well, without the year round sun to rely on most NJ people go with gas (not so concerned with earthquakes here if that's the concern besides cost in CA) although I would consider other options if it weren't for the spa.

I'm in the process of replacing my 2 HP Jandy pump with the ePump. My system was originally installed about five years ago, so in addition to the ePump, my Aqualink needed an upgrade too. Thankfully, Jandy has a special upgrade program that keeps the cost down.

I'm in California so we're subject to a tiered pricing program. With my 2HP pump, I'm almost always in the 300-400% over baseline so my energy bills are $300-500 a month. I'm hopeful that with the switch over to the ePump, I can get reduce my energy consumption enough to get me back into the 200% over baseline range.

In any case, I know what my daily consumption is for the 2HP, so in a few days I'll have an idea on just how much the ePump is going to save me.

I'm looking to run the ePump for about an hour a day at a higher rate for my suction cleaner, then ramp way down for maybe 10 hours of standard filtering.

Yes, I'm still following this thread, so anyone with real-life experience to report will be helpful.

What type of sanitizer do you have for your pool and how slow can you do your turnover to save on electric?

I am going to get a Paramount Clear O3 ozonator as a supplement to chlorine and want to know at what is the lowest speed to use this product at with the Jandy e-pump running pretty much 24/7 for filtration. Any advice from anyone who is using or has installed this combination?

Hi anfnajs--
Yes, I'm still following this thread, so anyone with real-life experience to report will be helpful.

What type of sanitizer do you have for your pool and how slow can you do your turnover to save on electric?

I am going to get a Paramount Clear O3 ozonator as a supplement to chlorine and want to know at what is the lowest speed to use this product at with the Jandy e-pump running pretty much 24/7 for filtration. Any advice from anyone who is using or has installed this combination?

The Jandy e-pump instructions are not written for DIYers. I initially thought I would be hooking up the e-Pump to the Filter pump relay. I now realize that the pump gets wired directly from the circuit breaker because it is controlled directly by the RS8 OneTouch controller via the RS-485 serial connection. Once I figured that out and updated the information in the OneTOuch controller my OneTouch menu became less confusing.

Although I have only had the e-Pump running for 24 hours I can honestly say I was blown away when I first powered it up. In fact, I thought it wasn't working at all it was so quite. I had to peer into the clear plastic strainer basket to confirm that water was actually flowing. I am really impressed at how little noise there is even when running at the higher speeds (>3,000RPM).

My total cost for the pump and the RS8 controller update was just under $1,200 including shipping, and my power company gives me a $100 rebate for installing an energy efficient pump.

I recently installed a solar system that dropped my electricity bill significantly ($546 Aug 2008 without solar to $86 Aug 2009 with solar). I am hoping that the addition of the e-pump will bring my monthly average to zero. The top tier rate for electricity in my area is $0.45/kilowatt hour. There was a real incentive for me to install the e-pump, and I hope it pays off. As a side benefit my pool equipment is MUCH quieter which I am sure my neighbors will also appreciate.

I was happy with the removal of the pump relay as it gained me a aux that I was able to put my misters on.

The longer runtime of the pump does appear to benefit the salt-water chlorinator. I can run at lower output, and the constant circulation seems to help keep the chlorine levels consistent all day long.

Since you've been running your e-pump a bit longer than I have can you share how long you run the filtration mode for, and what speeds you are using for each of the various modes:

filter
spa
solar
cleaner
% output for chlorine generator
etc.

Since the OneTouch displays the watts used for each speed I am trying to carefully balance the amount of power used vs effectiveness in each mode.

Thanks for your information. As you may have found, there is very little information on the web about these pumps. It took me several months researching various web sites before I was willing to take a chance and order the pump and OneTouch upgrade kit. Hopefully your information can help others make the decision whether to switch.

For now, I've got the basic filtration running at 1700 RPM (about 220 watts per the display), for 10 hours a day. I've got the Jandy DE60 filter, and the pressure is running at about 4-6 PSI at that speed.

Every other day, for three of those 10 hours, I switch over to my suction cleaner only, and drop the RPM's in the 1300 RPM range. I had tried running 1-2 hours per day on the suction cleaner, but I think the every-other-day with a longer runtime works better.

Spa - Still playing with this. It is comfortable at about 2950, but it needs to be at about 3200 to really get the air/agitation.

I have the AquaPure 1400. I've got it at 35% but I'm dropping it more every day as it's still producing too much.

I have a Pentair 1 speed pump that is 13 years old and it is starting to suck air which means that sometimes it will not prime and gets too hot and melts the basket. And if I catch it in time, I can go outside and turn it off and see what the problem is and fix it. But, with winter coming and the freeze protection kicking on, I'm not about to stay up all night to watch it.

Anyway, I'm looking at the Pentair Intelliflow VF or the VS-3050 pumps. I know that the VS-3050 requires the IntelliComm II relay to communicate with my Jandy AquaLink RS8 and to communicate to the inside house panel, but does the Intelliflow VF also require the IntelliComm II relay? I thought that the VF already had built-in communications?

Also, from the materials that I have read, Pentair says that the elect savings on the VS-3050 is 30% and the VF pump is 90%. Has anyone actually seen this type of elect. savings?

"Also, from the materials that I have read, Pentair says that the elect savings on the VS-3050 is 30% and the VF pump is 90%. Has anyone actually seen this type of elect. savings? "

That is a little misleading... The VF and VS have the same exact impeller, pump body, and motor. The only thing different is the drive, and the way it operates.

If both pumps are running at the same RPM, both will consume the same amount of power.

I feel that 90% number is because its easier to monitor the power consumption by the VF pump, and easier to properly set up.

Previous speed pump - Jandy 2.0 HP Stealth.
New varible-speed pump - Jandy ePump
Southern California
Tier 5 energy cost: $0.36 kWh
Tier 4 energy cost: $0.31 kWh

Previous Single Speed Pump Costs per Month: $150
6-hour run per day

Variable Speed Pump Costs per Month: $33
2 hours per day at 2750 (suction cleaning and skimming) - $17 per month
8 hours per day at 1750 (pool circulation) - $16 per month

Savings so far: $117 per month ($1,404 year)

With the introduction of the variable-speed pump, I've also dropped out of the Tier5 energy costs, resulting in a $0.05 drop per kWh!!!

I paid under $900 for the ePump and got a $200 rebate from the power company. At this rate, I figure the pump will pay for itself in just under six months.

Bottom line, be it the Jandy ePump or other variable-speed pump, the savings are significant and well worth the investment.

Besides the ePump, I also replaced the halogen sAM pool lights with Intellibrites, and I'm still looking for a good alternative for the low-voltage under-20w halogen yard lights. With nearly 30 path, tree, etc. lights it adds up to another 900 watts with all the lights on. That's another $50 per month just to have all the backyard lights on.

What's sad is that in 2004 when the pool/backyard was complete, we didn't have the rates we have now. I could keep everything on and I only added about $70 per month to the electric bill. Now it's over $200. :(

For the back yard lighting, LED lights are making a huge improvement in variety. They even come in X-Mas light strings! It makes a HUGE difference in consumption and still puts out enough useful light and ambiance.

Scott

baseline is 16 kWh per day, so for September, it was 480 kWh at the Tier 1 rate. In summer, I'm typically at 2200-2500 kWh, and in winter the low is about 1100 kWh. The change to the ePump should reduce my consumption across the board by 330 kWh per month.

Pollguynj,
I've looked at LED, but just like the christmas lights, they seem to produce a very odd pin-point light. Perhaps with the added benefit of the path lights covering it won't be noticed, so I'll need to give them a try.

Any advice?

Uncle Dave (Davegvg)

Figured it out, there are 2 setting for variable speed- one is like a temporary setting the other seem to be its reference.

Im pretty impressed I had the thing singing at full output today with the solar on and got 6 degrees out of the system in 6 hours of run time that's 166K+ btu and hour mid november.

It really honks at full clip and is really quiet and efficient at low filter speed.

Take a look

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYN92oAcPgc

Davegvg