Combine gas heater with heat pump?

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L

Leviny

0
Dec 7, 2013
10
Los Angeles
Hello all,

20,000 gal pool in LA (near LAX) with Raypack 2100 heater. looking to swim year round, but the cost of heating is $500+/month for heating Thursday-Sunday, to 85*f. From my research it looks like a heat pump would pay for itself in savings after less than 2 years. We do use a cover at night and when not swimming.

Questions:
1. Can I install a heat pump IN ADDITION to the gas heater? in line, with the pump after the gas? I don't see why not, but I'm a newbie.

2. Recommendations for heat pumps? I'm leaning toward the Raypack 8350ti. too big? too small? our day temps are 65-75 winter, 70-80 summer, night temps 50-55 winter, 60-65 summer. wind 0-10 knots.

3. Recommendations for installers in LA?

Any info is appreciated.
 
You can, but heatpumps are not all they are cracked up to be. The efficiency drops off greatly when it gets colder. I was told 35 bucks a month and my bills were 350 a month just running the heat pump trying to keep the water heated during the winter and I'm in south florida. Not to mention with Gas, you can heat the pull up pretty quick if you want to swim, with a heat pump, it takes a long time. When I want to use my jacuzzi in the winter, the heat pump takes a good hour to heat it up.
 
You can have a heat pump and a gas heater in line and it works just fine. However, I don't see the heat pump providing you much help during the colder times of the year. So you figured your gas costs to be $500 a month?
 
Unfortunately, there is no way to do it economically. Solar panels don't typically do the job in the winter, heatpump won't either as the efficiency drops, you need to run the pump 24 hours a day and likely would need two heat pumps two actually keep it at 85 and your bill would be through the roof.
 
ps0303 said:
You can have a heat pump and a gas heater in line and it works just fine. However, I don't see the heat pump providing you much help during the colder times of the year. So you figured your gas costs to be $500 a month?
Click to expand...

After getting my first bill (over 500, but includes A/C and water heating, and only using the pool a couple of times) I used my gas meter to find out how much gas the heater was using per hour, and calculated that for heating the pool for use only on weekends, the bill would exceed $500 a month just for the pool heating... If I'm going to pay that, I want to swim everyday. Sounds like a heat pump needs to keep the water heated all the time or it doesn't work, I'm curious how much that would cost. Combining gas and pump may allow me to turn them off Monday-Friday, or keep the pump on but with lower temp, then blast the gas Friday for a few hours then use the pump to maintain.
 
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I would believe that after you blasted it with the gas heater, keep it covered and you won't lose much of the money you just spent heating it. You might lose up to 5 degrees during the night but a gas heater will recover it pretty quickly. Just keep it covered.
 
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