Big pool in Northeast - worth heating?

[Thurston]

My pool is somewhere around 41,000 gallons and I live in RI. We have a natural gas line at the house. Roughly what would I be looking at spending to get a heater for the pool to bump up a few degrees or so.

Would it be worth it for a pool this size?

 

[ajw22]

You have to decide what heating your pool is worth to you.​

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Heater Run Time and Cost Calculator​

This Heating Runtime and Cost spreadsheet contains:

• A Scratch Pad where you can estimate the hours needed to run the heater to achieve a desired temperature rise for a given water volume. There is a Multiplier Factor to account for variability in heating water that is subject to the elements. This is explained further in the spreadsheet.
• A Cost Estimator where you can select the billing unit from a drop-down list, cost per billing unit, heater BTU, and number of hours the heater is run. For the number of hours, you can use either the hours calculated in the Scratch Pad or enter your own figure. The spreadsheet calculates cost by taking the cost per billing unit and dividing it by the number of BTUs in that billing unit to arrive at a cost per BTU. It then takes the cost per BTU and multiplies that by the Gross BTU output of the heater to get the cost per hour to run the heater. The cost per hour is then multiplied by the number of hours the heater is run to arrive at the Total cost to run the heater for X hours.

The spreadsheet is set up to use with Natural Gas heaters. It estimates the variable usage-based cost that appears on your bill. Fixed costs that appear on your bill are not factored into cost calculations since, by definition, a fixed cost is static and would appear on your bill as the same amount each month regardless of consumption.

When using the runtime for Heat Pumps put the Heat Pump BTU's in the Net heater BTU field instead of reducing it by 20% for natural gas heater efficiency loss.

This spreadsheet loads in Excel .xls 2003 format but should be saved in .xlsx format.

Raypak Gas Pool Heater Sizer​

Raypak has a Gas Pool Heater Sizer. It tells you the Temperature Rise/Hr and Natural Gas and Propane costs to heat a pool in your local area to selected temperature by month. Adjust the natural gas cost and propane cost in the lower left to your local gas prices for accurate costs.

 

[Thurston]

Thanks that is helpful. What about cost for a heating system? Just looking for ballpark.

 

[ajw22]

Thanks that is helpful. What about cost for a heating system? Just looking for ballpark.

Do you have the gas line by the pool pad? Running a gas line from your gas meter to the pool pad can be expensive.

A 400K BTU heater runs $4,000 - 6,000 depending on your local markup.

 

[SJPoe]

For what it's worth, we had a Hayward 250k BTU added for our IG 18x36/25k pool at the start of the season. We wanted to be able to extend the swimming season for our grandson as he uses it as part of physical therapy.

Total cost was roughly 4600 including new gas line (about 30ft) with double shut-offs (inside and out), external GFCI power outlet, installation, plumbing and so on.
Gas line itself was bout 900, although that did include some other minor items they did at the same time.

Pool was 46F when we opened it - heater took it to 80 in about 60 hours. Cost about $300 extra on the gas bill the first month (last two weeks of April in Mid-Michigan)
This month, after negotiating 84F as the wife-acceptable minimum, we're lookin at roughly $150~$200 'extra' on the bill this month. Figuring that to be under $10 day over the last 2 months, or barely a Venti Caramel Frappuccino and a Donut each, we consider it to be money well spent...plus swimming every day is better for us than the aforementioned delicious comestibles...

I expect the cost-per-day across the entire season to average out pretty low overall...especially as the ambient average temps increase, unless of course the wife figures out how to up the temperature to a non-negotiated higher value Keep in mind that your initial warm up cost will be driven by water volume, while your ongoing heating costs will be driven more by surface area (due to evaporative heat loss) and a good solar cover can radically reduce that (and hence reduce your heating requirement).

YMMV

p.s. Now I want a donut...and the pool is currently 84.8F

 

[1poolman1]

My pool is somewhere around 41,000 gallons and I live in RI. We have a natural gas line at the house. Roughly what would I be looking at spending to get a heater for the pool to bump up a few degrees or so.

Would it be worth it for a pool this size?

41,000 gallons = +/-338,000 pounds of water. A new 400,000 btu heater will put +/- 328,000 btu per hour into the water giving you just under a 1 degree temp rise per hour. Most gas is billed by the therm (100 cu. ft.) A 400,000 uses 4 per hour to give your pool about 1 degree.