Question about Above Ground Pool heater

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L

lasercomp

0
May 15, 2015
46
Brooklyn NY
Hi all. I just ran a natural gas line to my backyard and now ready to buy a heater for the pool. My pool is 12x18 oval and a salt water system. I found a site to help calculate square footage and it comes out to be about 170 sq ft. My research pointed me to the Hayward H1001D heater. Its 100k btu which is way more than I need. So here are my two questions. Can someone recommend a better heater for my needs while keeping price below $1000?.

The second part is installation and location of heater. I don't have any room to put a heater near the pump and motor. Is there anything wrong of the heater is installed about 20-25 feet away from the pump? The pump is about 3-5 feet from the pool wall where return is. So basically the heated woater will travel about 20-25 feet back to the pool. Any advice would be appreciated. Thank you


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Ok I'm not the heater expert but I'll give you some thoughts.

The 25 foot run is not that much of a problem. Plenty of pools with that length of run. Just remember even though it is isolated from the rest of the equipment it still must be bonded to the pump and to pool. Additionally, you still need to make sure your heater location complies with the installation manual and local code.


The larger problem with any above ground pool is maintaining the heat in the pool. You need a cover so you cover the pool whenever you are heating it.

I don't think that heater is more than you need. When you heat up a pool it immediately starts to loose heat. The heater heats and the pools loses the heat. The larger the heater you have the faster it heats up to temperature so less gas is used heating the pool. So the greater capacity of your heater (up to a point) the less gas you use because your heat loss is less getting the pool to the desired temp. Make sense? This effect is greater with an AGP because it has more exposed area (unless you insulate the walls). If you do a search you can find several threads on here explaining this better than I did here and running through the actual math.
 
Agree that using a solar cover overnight to retain the heat is beneficial. We usually recommend the thinnest one because they work almost as well, cost less and are easier to handle. I use an 8mil clear solar cover.
 
Well, unfortunately, you picked one of the worst heaters on the market. If you are a good tinkerer then you might stand a chance with it. Mine has been a bit of a pain since I got it. Fortunately, I work on home heating systems all the time so I am familiar with how to keep this thing going. You will have problems with the water pressure switch and the control board to name a few things. I was able to resolve the pressure switch issue with mine and a few others around here with a simple adjustment. Mine came from the factory set to not let the heater come on until the pump pressure was around 25psi. The only way I was able to ever get my system pressure that high was to hold my hand over the return outlet. I discovered the control board problem by accident. I was at work one day looking up the relays on the board thinking one of them was bad (replacement board is $600) and noticed that there were some bad solder connections on the power inputs to the board. 5 min with the soldering iron solved that issue. I will have to say though, once I "tuned" mine up, it has been pretty good.

As for your pool, you might see about 1-1.5 deg/hr of heat rise in the pool with it
 
pooldv said:
Agree that using a solar cover overnight to retain the heat is beneficial. We usually recommend the thinnest one because they work almost as well, cost less and are easier to handle. I use an 8mil clear solar cover.
Click to expand...
Hi. Which type of solar cover would you recommend that would be easiest to remove and reapply? My kids are 12 and 14 and if the requirement to remove or reapply takes too long, they won't be interested. Lol. Thanks

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danpik said:
Well, unfortunately, you picked one of the worst heaters on the market. If you are a good tinkerer then you might stand a chance with it. Mine has been a bit of a pain since I got it. Fortunately, I work on home heating systems all the time so I am familiar with how to keep this thing going. You will have problems with the water pressure switch and the control board to name a few things. I was able to resolve the pressure switch issue with mine and a few others around here with a simple adjustment. Mine came from the factory set to not let the heater come on until the pump pressure was around 25psi. The only way I was able to ever get my system pressure that high was to hold my hand over the return outlet. I discovered the control board problem by accident. I was at work one day looking up the relays on the board thinking one of them was bad (replacement board is $600) and noticed that there were some bad solder connections on the power inputs to the board. 5 min with the soldering iron solved that issue. I will have to say though, once I "tuned" mine up, it has been pretty good.

As for your pool, you might see about 1-1.5 deg/hr of heat rise in the pool with it
Click to expand...

Hello. I didn't buy the heater yet. Still shopping for the best one within my budget. Do you recommend something other than the Hayward? When you say 25psi pump pressure , do you mean the filter reading when the pump is on? Mine usually is between 10-14. I always thought that's the correct psi for proper operation. Forgive me if these are silly questions. I am pretty new to pools and maintenance of them. Thank you.

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gwegan said:
Ok I'm not the heater expert but I'll give you some thoughts.

The 25 foot run is not that much of a problem. Plenty of pools with that length of run. Just remember even though it is isolated from the rest of the equipment it still must be bonded to the pump and to pool. Additionally, you still need to make sure your heater location complies with the installation manual and local code.


The larger problem with any above ground pool is maintaining the heat in the pool. You need a cover so you cover the pool whenever you are heating it.

I don't think that heater is more than you need. When you heat up a pool it immediately starts to loose heat. The heater heats and the pools loses the heat. The larger the heater you have the faster it heats up to temperature so less gas is used heating the pool. So the greater capacity of your heater (up to a point) the less gas you use because your heat loss is less getting the pool to the desired temp. Make sense? This effect is greater with an AGP because it has more exposed area (unless you insulate the walls). If you do a search you can find several threads on here explaining this better than I did here and running through the actual math.
Click to expand...
Thank you for your response . I'm going to look into a solar cover as well . I just need to find one that is easy to remove and store and then reapply at end of swim day.

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Every pool will have a different PSI setting depending on the plumbing, number of returns, etc. A properly set up heater should run fine on your pressure. All the pressure switch really is for is to verify that there is water moving thru the heater. My pressure switch, for some unknown reason, was set way too high. Fortunately I am familiar with these systems so it was no problem for me. Most everyone on here will recommend Raypac heaters. I don't know if they offer one in the 100, - 150,000 range.
 
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