Heat pump or solar heater with solar panels

[benconrad30]

Hello all,
I live in Orange County, Ca with San Diego Gas and Electric, SDGE. To make the pool more comfortable for swimming would you recommend a heat pump or solar heating. I use about 20-15 kw of energy a day and am producing easily twice that amount with my solar panels. Any advice would be appreciated.
Thank you,

 

[ajw22]

Here are some prior threads on the question of a Heat Pump in the San Diego area...

Does a heat pump work in the San Diego area?

Hello Everyone -- We live in San Marcos, CA (approximately 35 miles north of San Diego) and want to extend our pool season a few more months (start April 1st/end Nov 30). Our pool is currently heated only using solar panels/solar cover, but I am considering installing a secondary heat source...

www.troublefreepool.com

Does a heat pump work in San Diego?

Hello Everyone -- We live in San Marcos, CA (approximately 35 miles north of San Diego) and want to extend our pool season a few more months (start April 1st/end Nov 30). Our pool is currently heated only using solar panels/solar cover, but I am considering installing a secondary heat source...

www.troublefreepool.com

San Diego HEAT PUMP

I've called a few stores and they say heat pumps don't work here. I have a heat pump for my home heat/ac so I'm confused with that answer. I know that heat pumps use outside air so I would not have the pump on at all in those months that our lowest temperature is 45 degrees. But I would like to...

www.troublefreepool.com

Heat Pump and San Diego

Hi all, New pool owner here and after moving into my house in San Marcos in August, the old Pentair natural gas heater died. I'm leaning towards a heat pump and using my PV solar to offset the bill. I'm assuming max 6kwh draw per hour of operation with 0.5kwh for the VS pump against a 20+kw...

www.troublefreepool.com

Looking for a recommendation on the solar pool heater system for Burlingame, CA

Hello, I am looking for a recommendation on the solar pool heating system for a pool in Burlingame, CA. The pool is about 700 sq. feet. I received a few bids from a company that did my electrical solar panels and from my pool guy, both are in the $7500 range. Solar company suggests using 7...

www.troublefreepool.com

Solar Pool Heaters - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[Ahultin]

The decision will come down to your intended use. I have solar pool heat in north san diego county and while it keeps the pool warm enough for me to swim all year, my wife thinks i'm nuts. Id say it stretches the season to 8-10 months easy. It also had the side effect of keeping the pool warm enough for the SWG to work all year so no liquid supplementation. Theoretically the heat pump (cost to operate not withstanding) could give you 12 months swimmable. I believe @treyrich is in your area and running a heat pump, maybe he could add some insight.

 

[treyrich]

Happy to provide insight, but I do have to preface any insights I provide with the fact that my pool is only 5 months old, and I haven’t been through a full year with it yet.

My findings so far with the heat pump are that yes, it can definitely extend your season 12 months. But it uses a lot of power. Mine can easily pull 30-40 kWh in a day (cold nights in the last week). This power usage is only made worst on cold cloudy days, which is when your power production is not working at its peak.

It works great, but I suspect that this year will be the first year that we end up having a power bill since we added our PV solar, we were in the same boat of only using about half of what we produced, but the heat pump is going to overwhelm that. To me it’s worth it though, because even if I have a power bill at the end of the year, at least I will have used all of the power that I produced rather than just selling it back to the grid.