Heat Pump Costing Way More Than I Expected

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dkite22

0
Nov 9, 2015
77
Lawrence, KS
We just opened our new 20x40 inground vinyl liner pool with automatic cover and we live by Kansas City. We had the Pentair UltraPerformance Heat/Cool pump installed. It is equipped with 125,000 BTUs. We have had temperatures in the mid-70s and low 50s at night for the last 4-5 days. I initially turned my Pentair Heat/Cool pump on Thursday at noon. Since having it on, I am able to review my Energy Dashboard online through Westar Energy who services this area. It is very clear when the heat pump is turned on and when it is not. Based on historical costs before heat pump was installed, we averaged about $3 a day for electricity. My energy dashboard breaks it out in 15-minute increments or every quarter hour. With the heat pump on, the costs go to $.25 every quarter hour which results in a cost of about $1.00 per hour to run heat pump. I have had it on straight for 72 hours and sure enough, my daily costs are showing a total amount of about $27-28 which accounts for the $25 for heat pump and the normal $3-4 I was paying before. I have pasted a summary of the rates that Westar Energy uses. Based on these, I consider these to be lower than the national average. I am not an expert by any means but I just feel like this seemed really high. I'm not very knowledgeable around electrical hook-ups either so don't know if it is a possibility that the heat pump is not wired correctly causing it to use more energy. I was hoping the experts on this forum would be able to let me know if this seems reasonable or if I need to look into it further. Thanks again for all the support.

For the months of October through May:
$0.075360 per kWh for the first 500 kWh
$0.075360 per kWh for the next 400 kWh
$0.061600 per kWh for all additional kWh



 
I wold look through the heat pump manual see if you can find the average kWh usage. Based on the numbers you provided it sounds like it and the pool pump combined is pulling 13kWh sounds high to me but I bet it's not impossible.

As I understand it the warmer the ambient temp the better the Heat pump works, if that is the case you may be getting little to no benefit running it at night vs putting a blanket on the pool at night to keep the heat you generated during the day and resume heating the next day but I would want someone with real world experience to chime in I am only basing it on very limited knowledge.
 
Agreed with above. You MUST cover a heated pool at night or else all of the heat you add during the day will simply radiate away at night. You are also on the cusp of the spring/summer season and so this will be the time when your pool heating will cost the most. It doesn't matter if you use gas or electric, the amount of heat required is the same and you're paying for that energy input.

Also, at 50F overnight , you are right on the operational edge of a heat pump. There's no sense in running it overnight at those air temps as you're just wasting energy. The heat transfer from cold air is very inefficient at those temperatures.

Set your heat pump to only run during the warmer daytime temps and keep the pool covered. That will create the biggest savings.
 
I didn't want to bother with a solar cover so I tried the liquid solar blanket. It wasn't as good (I didn't expect it to be) but it was a lot better than not using anything. If you don't want to bother with the solar cover try the liquid at first to see what results you get. The solar cover will keep the heat in a tremendous amount compared to not having one on. But it's a bit of an upfront cost (cover itself and if you opt for it, a reel).
 
A 125k BTU heater with a COP of 5, should require a little over 7.3 kwatts to operate but that is only $0.54/hour. Since you are running at twice that amount, the COP must have dropped by 50% probably due to the cold but that is a very low COP for a heat pump.

To confirm, I would measure the direct energy use using the meter on the side of the house, on vs off.
 
I just flipped our heater on Friday evening to warm up the pool
For the weekend. Went from 66 degrees to 80 in about 18 hours or so. Thank god it got warm yesterday and today. I will be shutting the heater down for the next couple weeks and won't open next year until
After the pollen is done dropping. Was fun swimming this weekend but I'm guessing the propane tank is about 100 gallons lighter.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

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