Have a property in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico that has an inground hottub that I would like to heat. It gets about 300 plus sun days a year and stays
at about 80 degrees during the day just from the sun. The rooftop solar heating we have gets the hottub to 90 degrees on a good day.
Would like to have additional hottub heat on shady days and at night.
I know a little about electrical and construction, but could sure use advice in regard to the in ground hot tub. My questions:
1. I am thinking of buying a new cover for both the pool and hottub to cover it at night. We have an inexpensive 6 mil bubble cover.
There is a company here that will sell us a 12 mil version that is supposedly doubled over to make it thicker. Its a 8 foot x 25 foot
inground pool with 8 foot diameter inground hot tub. Their cost is around $450 for covers for both. Is it worth spending the extra
$$ on the thicker cover?
2. Had thought about heating the pool and hotub with a heatpump because I understand that is the most efficient. Will cost about
$6000 here to do it. Have started to rethink it and am just going to use a cover on the pool and then a smaller heater for the hottub.
We don't have natural gas here. We have propane. Between the cost of propane and the extra setup for gas, it doesn't look
economical (at least initially to do gas). Am thinking of going electrical resistance heating on the tub. Yes I know it's the least economical!
And to make things worse, electrical costs 40 cents a KW hour here. The pool contractor here can install a Rheem Ray Pak Model 1102
11 KW electrical resistance model for about $1300. This seems like the lowest cost solution, but is the electrical cost going
to kill us? Its not hard to compute the wattage it uses per hour, but we would probably only run it 5 hours a day and I assume it would not run at full draw all the time. Does anyone have any monthly operating cost info on this type of unit.
Would sure appreciate any advice!
at about 80 degrees during the day just from the sun. The rooftop solar heating we have gets the hottub to 90 degrees on a good day.
Would like to have additional hottub heat on shady days and at night.
I know a little about electrical and construction, but could sure use advice in regard to the in ground hot tub. My questions:
1. I am thinking of buying a new cover for both the pool and hottub to cover it at night. We have an inexpensive 6 mil bubble cover.
There is a company here that will sell us a 12 mil version that is supposedly doubled over to make it thicker. Its a 8 foot x 25 foot
inground pool with 8 foot diameter inground hot tub. Their cost is around $450 for covers for both. Is it worth spending the extra
$$ on the thicker cover?
2. Had thought about heating the pool and hotub with a heatpump because I understand that is the most efficient. Will cost about
$6000 here to do it. Have started to rethink it and am just going to use a cover on the pool and then a smaller heater for the hottub.
We don't have natural gas here. We have propane. Between the cost of propane and the extra setup for gas, it doesn't look
economical (at least initially to do gas). Am thinking of going electrical resistance heating on the tub. Yes I know it's the least economical!
And to make things worse, electrical costs 40 cents a KW hour here. The pool contractor here can install a Rheem Ray Pak Model 1102
11 KW electrical resistance model for about $1300. This seems like the lowest cost solution, but is the electrical cost going
to kill us? Its not hard to compute the wattage it uses per hour, but we would probably only run it 5 hours a day and I assume it would not run at full draw all the time. Does anyone have any monthly operating cost info on this type of unit.
Would sure appreciate any advice!
