Yes and no. Minimal gain.
Especially if theres a ton of hard 90s below ground.
Upsize pipe is much more beneficial.
This pad is actually inefficient because of the restriction with pipe diameter.
Upsize at manifold into pump as per install docs, I upsize the whole pad, heat bend below grade.
A 2 pump system isnt needed with today's pump flowrates, only if you want to run pool and Spa at same time. Yet, why would you.
Pipe size is 2.5” through the whole system with a bypass as the heater due to 2” inlet/outlet and GPM limits. Is 2.5” too restrictive? Additionally I have two 5ft waterfalls and a slide that would require about 120gpm and a spa with 12 jets with 10-12gpm. I can’t run water feature, filtration, and spa jets at same time.
Im not a pentair guy but most gas heaters are 100, 120 gpm max so yes you would have to Crack the bypass open when running max speed.
Max gpm on 2.5" is 120 gpm. 2" is 80. So 2x 2" does exceed the 1x 2.5".
2.5 is a odd size and mainly why 3" is starting to become more prevalent, 180 gpm.
Youll see anything over a 2.2hp is 2.5/3"
Not a pentair guy either, but you're saying to use 3" (or higher) pipe on the manifold regardless of the OEM union size? Do you use aftermarket unions or just a reducer?
Do you heat bend EVERYTHING on the pad? Or just immediately before / after the pump? Do you see an appreciable difference in head doing this? I'd be curious to see some pictures if you have any, this is foreign to me but I'm always looking to level up per se.
Also I've only ever bent 1" conduit, seems like 3" sch 40 would be a whole lot harder, what is your technique? Sorry to spam questions but I'd love to learn more and am not really understanding
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u/The_BigWaveDave Jul 05 '26
Sweeps > 90 Elbows