Pool heat to 90 ?

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C

central nj

0
May 21, 2012
34
Hi,
My daughter is having 8 friends over, and wants to have a night pool party. The pool is still open, but we aren't really using it because it is so cold (65-70). She wants me to jack the heat to 90 so they can float around at night like a hot tub. I roughly calculated that it costs $3/hour to run the heater, and it raises the temp 2 deg/hr, so it would cost approx $50 for the day of heat. High, but not extreme divided by so many kids.

Is there a problem heating that hot (besides the expense) in october?

Thanks
Steve
 
Steve, I don't see any problem with your plan, but I don't know for certain that you'll make it to 90, and my hunch is the gas bill will be considerably higher than you think...
I say this only because last weekend for my son's birthday, I heated the pool to 90, but the daytime high was low 70s, and I managed to get to 84. But as an experiment, we left it on overnight when it dropped to 40, and it couldn't seem to crack 74.
Purpose for the not cheap experiment was to see if there was any sane point to trying to bring it up this weekend for my visiting niece and nephews...but daytime temps dropped to 50 and 34 overnight so kiddies are getting a hayride and corn maze instead, and even with six of them and treats it will be considerably cheaper than trying to heat the pool ;)
Maybe your temps are more merciful or your heater is more powerful. I don't have a cover, so that's partly why I suspect I can't sustain a decent temp.

Just keep an eye on your gas meter and record the CCFs. In our neck of the woods, if you multiply that by .86 you'll get a preview of your bill ;)

Also, my hot tub is 104...not sure the kids will find 90 very hottub ish at night, but then again, they're kid's, so maybe they'll be good with that. At my son's party (it was his 21st) I noticed they were pretty quick to start a fire and pour the bourbon...ratio of pool-to-bourbon time definitely favored the bourbon, so I could have just bought them each a bottle and saved myself on the gas ;)
 
You need to factor in the rate of heat loss from the pool. If you don't use a cover and if the air temperature is cold or you have dry windy air, then you could lose heat nearly as fast as you are adding it, at least when the temperature of the water gets warmer. You should be ahead at 2ºF/hour, but you could lose heat at 1º or 1.5ºF/hour unless you have an insulating cover.
 
My water temp was 62, daytime air temp was approx 70, night temp was approx 50. I fired the heater for the first time at about 5 pm. The next morning, my water temp was 82 and by 3 pm the water temp was 92. Our pool is 24' round and heater is a Hayward H200.
 
I've done this, but the pool has a solar (bubble) blanket on it. That makes a huge difference. Without the blanket, I agree with the others, doubt you'd make it to 90. With the blanket, took about 12 hours to go from 60 to 90. Nice when you're in the water, but mighty chilly getting out!
 
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