Please help me pick a pool heater setup (solar heater + ?)

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horseshoecrab

New member
Jun 23, 2022
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San Diego, CA
I have an old unheated pool in the coastal area of San Diego. I'm planning to add heating, but have to decide what type of heater is most cost-effective.
Pool size is about 15,000 gallons and there is no spa. Temperature runs between 50-75 deg throughout the year and humidity averages around 50%. There is sunlight on many days, but due to the marine layer it may be partial. One well-known pool builder recommended a combination of a solar heater loop combined with a Pentair gas heater. The gas rate has gone up in 2022 to $2.38/therm. Since I already have a decent PV setup on the roof, I am now considering installing a heat pump instead of a gas heater as the backup to the solar heater.

Questions:
1. Can the combination solar loop and a heat pump keep the pool warm enough to swim on most (all?) of the year?
2. How do I estimate the power usage of a heat pump? Does anyone have any real-world numbers of KWh from their meter/bill? I don't want to install a heat pump that draws more than my PV panels can produce on average because electric prices are very high in this area.

I tried the Pentair calculator but has too many invisible assumptions.

Thanks for helping me.
 
I have a customer in Solana beach that has solar heat and a solar cover and his pool is comfortable to swim in most of the year. We usually take the cover off from thanksgiving to March. When it’s on the pool usually it gets up to 90f half the year.
I have a customer in Rancho Santa Fe that has an auto cover and solar and his pool was 85f 9months out of the year. There aren’t many heat pumps installed in San Diego, there is a 80:80 rule 80f 80humidity. But technology is always advancing and there has been a recent push in heat pumps. If you go the heat pump route let me know how it works out.
 
Poolbreh said:
I have a customer in Solana beach that has solar heat and a solar cover and his pool is comfortable to swim in most of the year. We usually take the cover off from thanksgiving to March. When it’s on the pool usually it gets up to 90f half the year.
I have a customer in Rancho Santa Fe that has an auto cover and solar and his pool was 85f 9months out of the year. There aren’t many heat pumps installed in San Diego, there is a 80:80 rule 80f 80humidity. But technology is always advancing and there has been a recent push in heat pumps. If you go the heat pump route let me know how it works out.
Click to expand...
This was very helpful. Thanks!
 
My brother lives in Miramar area. Has PV (now) plus pool solar plus heater (pretty sure it is gas, used primarily to heat attached spa with spillover to pool). They don’t swim year round - the pool does get cooler in winter, but easily swimmable from March through November. However, they don’t really make any effort to extend, like covering the pool at night. Too much work! I think their pool would easily stay in the high 70s, maybe even 80 if they covered even in the coolest months (no such thing as “cold” months in San Diego!! ) just using solar.

I think a heat pump plus solar plus covering the pool would work if you really want to swim year round. But, since you would only need to use a “little” extra gas heat to keep it swimmable, is it worth doing the updates to a heat pump (equipment + installation)?
 
I put a heat pump in a little over a year ago, and it's been great! I opted for the AquaCal SQ150VS. This is a heat/cool heat pump, but .... it uses a variable speed inverter driven scroll compressor. It also has a titanium heat exchanger. It is the only variable speed heat pump I could find which is designed for pools. Being variable speed means it stages up and down depending on the need; so it is very efficient. Based on my electric rates here in Central Texas, I can run my heater for 24hrs at 100% for a bit less than $20. But once the water is at temp, the reality is the heater runs for just a few hours a day and almost never at 100% ... so it costs just a few dollars a day to maintain the temp.

It's actually so efficient, I'll heat the water even now sometimes, because my wife likes 88*F or higher water temps. One thing to note is that a heat pump is not like a gas heater. During spring and fall, it takes about 1 hour to raise the temp 1 degree. So I do have to plan ahead if I'm not maintaining the pool temp. So if it's at say 65*F, and I want it to be 85*F, then I need to plan 1 day ahead and turn on the heater ... it'll take roughly 20 hours to heat up 20 degrees.

Here's the full rundown on my experience choosing, and installing, a heatpump for my 14k gallon pool.

Choosing a Heat Pump

We are considering adding a heat pump to our pool (no spa, just a pool) and could use some input on deciding which model to go with. I am thinking a unit which can do both heating and cooling would be good, since we are in central Texas, and the water will reach into the mid 90's during the...
www.troublefreepool.com www.troublefreepool.com
 
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