I am a pool newbie who's bravely upgraded a pool in his Eichler home to Pentair VF, SunCoil solar heater, SunTouch, and IntelliChlor. Now I'd like to get them to work well. Does anyone know of an expert near Palo Alto, CA, who'd like to spend a few hours fine tuning my system, and teaching me about it?

For those of you that'd like the back story, here it is. I bought an Eichler, and decided to do an energy efficiency remodel. I hired Sustainable Spaces, a green remodel consultancy, who among other things, recommended upgrading my pool setup. So I did, and after a few hickups all was well. Pentair was running at 1000 RPM in normal mode, 2300 RPM with solar. The previous owner's utility bill of $1000/month was distant history, I was paying 200! Life was good, except...

After spending a hour and a half in the pool with my 3yo daily, I got tired of the chlorine. I decided to upgrate to salt-water, and bough an IntelliChlor. This was installed by a different installer, and he was not very knowledgeable on Pentair's line. To support Chlor flow requirements, now the pump had to run at 3000 RPM whenever solar was on. As solar was on 8 hours a day, now I was running at almost full power all the time.

I did not like the noise of 3000 RPM, and want to know if it has to be this way, or if I can do better. Right now, Chlor is running all the time, at 20%. If 3000 RPM is necessary when solar is on, could I run Chlor at 100% in the couple of hours before solar comes on? I can't find a way to set this in my controller. Would a different controller help? The chlor was not installed with 12" of straight pipe on the intake, could this be throwing off its flow detection?

Another reason why I'd like an expert is that my pool guys seem mystified by SunTouch. I have a feeling that I'll end up maintaining the pool myself unless I can find a better pool service place.

Here is a link that might be useful: My pool installation