I'm considering building a small gunite pool (10ft x 20ft, 7500 gal) at my house in the Boston,MA area. Just curious of the viability of keeping the pool open year round for swimming assuming it will be covered nearly all the time. Average lows are below freezing from Dec. - Mar.. Any users from up north on here keep your pool heated all winter? If so, what's your experience with it?
Any people from up north keep your pool heated in the winter?
- Thread starter windsnob
- Start date
I live in Northeast TN. We do get below freezing temps. We keep our small fiberglass pool open year round. We have a gas heater and just heat it up when we want to swim. We always swim on Thanksgiving and Chriatmas as well as occasional weekends. When we do not swim we keep it covered with a solar cover. We have freexe protection so when the temp drops the filter kicks in. My only fear is if the electricity goes out, we could be in trouble. In over 6 years, we haven't had a problem, yet.
Thanks for the info creechy. Power outages are a real concern here since we occasionally get bad winter storms. I'm considering installing a backup generator even if we decide not to go forward with the pool.
What size is your gas heater and how long does it take to heat up your pool?
- Jul 16, 2012
- 7,204
- Pool Size
- 27000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Hayward Aqua Rite (T-15)
Functionally speaking it will work. VERY expensive it will be. Spas have very thick covers to assist with heat retention (and are insulated all around). I expect you will not have that type of cover. I'd consider an automatic cover (about $10K for that size) as required, that you could also possibly put some type of manual insulating cover/material on top of. Of course if money is not a concern, then no worries on that front.
As mentioned above, you would be hosed if the power went out and you don't have backup power generation sufficient to run everything. Think major frozen pipe/equipment issues, etc.
That said, one of my deadbeat PB's who quoted us relayed the story of the RICH old lady customer who kept her large gunite pool heated all winter in MD (cold but not MA cold). He said snow would not accumulate within 10' of the pool due to the heat island effect.
You should seek out the interesting guy here who posted in the past year how to heat is pool all year for mere pennies it seemed. I'm joking about the pennies of course but he had put more thought into it than anyone else I've seen here. Maybe someone else can help with that link.
As mentioned above, you would be hosed if the power went out and you don't have backup power generation sufficient to run everything. Think major frozen pipe/equipment issues, etc.
That said, one of my deadbeat PB's who quoted us relayed the story of the RICH old lady customer who kept her large gunite pool heated all winter in MD (cold but not MA cold). He said snow would not accumulate within 10' of the pool due to the heat island effect.
You should seek out the interesting guy here who posted in the past year how to heat is pool all year for mere pennies it seemed. I'm joking about the pennies of course but he had put more thought into it than anyone else I've seen here. Maybe someone else can help with that link.
- May 23, 2015
- 24,379
- Pool Size
- 16000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
If the pool is small enough and you're willing to spend lots of money on it, you can build it with winterization in mind. You would need to insulate the pool walls from contact with the cold ground. So that would be like adding insulation board between the gunite shell and the ground. You could also by a form of PVC piping that has a solid PVC core (like normal SCH40 PVC) and then it is surrounded by a foam-core PVC pipe which insulates the inner pipe. Finally, as others have suggested, a high quality auto cover that is designed to be insulating will keep the evaporative heat loss low.
Do you have natural gas at your home? It's really the only viable option for heating. I suppose you could use propane, but it is way more expensive than NG. Pool heaters max out at 400kBTU/hr so that is your limit. You'll also need to build your pool such that the equipment pad is kept in a shed (possible heated) to keep the equipment out of the elements. The heater would also have to be very carefully installed with a proper vent for hot exhaust gasses. Other gas heater experts can chime in but I think you also have to be careful about cold intake air temperatures with gas heaters because you can get incomplete combustion of the NG and then a very acidic condensate can form on the heater core causing high rates of heater failure (kind of like how exhaust systems in cars that rot out quicker in colder climates).
It's possible....but it has to be done right....can you build your pool indoors?
Do you have natural gas at your home? It's really the only viable option for heating. I suppose you could use propane, but it is way more expensive than NG. Pool heaters max out at 400kBTU/hr so that is your limit. You'll also need to build your pool such that the equipment pad is kept in a shed (possible heated) to keep the equipment out of the elements. The heater would also have to be very carefully installed with a proper vent for hot exhaust gasses. Other gas heater experts can chime in but I think you also have to be careful about cold intake air temperatures with gas heaters because you can get incomplete combustion of the NG and then a very acidic condensate can form on the heater core causing high rates of heater failure (kind of like how exhaust systems in cars that rot out quicker in colder climates).
It's possible....but it has to be done right....can you build your pool indoors?
I guess it's possible to build it indoors but I don't think we'd be happy with it vs. an outdoor pool.
We have natural gas, but would need to upgrade at least our gas meter, hopefully not the feed pipe from the gas company.
Current plan is to integrate the pool with our deck which will be close to our garage and house, so the pool equipment could be put either in the garage (which is heated) or our basement. Space-wise, the basement would be better but then I'd have to deal with the possibility of 7500 gallons of water in my basement when something breaks. Maybe automatic shutoff valves would work for that though.
I've been doing some research on insulating concrete pools. This looks interesting: http://www.icfmag.com/articles/features/2013-07_ICF_Swimming_Pools.html
Here in Western NY we have a ski resort that does a year round outdoor pool. It is about 12,000 gallons, in ground. They have about 1,200,000 BTU's of heat available to keep it warm enough to use during the winter months. I would imagine the gas meter spins pretty fast when running full tilt.
- May 23, 2015
- 24,379
- Pool Size
- 16000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
If you did put it in the basement, you would need to make sure the lines are properly plumbed with check valves in the even of a leak...or even just taking off the pump basket lid!! You'd also need a way to make sure any water spilled around the equipment has a drain or a method of capture. Backwashing would have to go into your waste drain but you'd have to ensure that the flow doesn't overwhelm your sewer pipe or else you'll blow backwash up into your toilets and showers. Also, a pool pump running full-tilt can be noisy; variable speed pumps can be quite quiet when run on low. So you'll need to make sure it's located in a section of your basement where noise won't be too much of an issue.
It is a Raypak gas heater. The booklet had many different model numbers on the front so I am not sure which model we have. I will look at the heater tomorrow to see if I can find a model number. If the pool is really cold, it usually takes 24-36 hours to get it heated. It usually costs me about $50.00 to heat it for a weekend. It is always worth it!
There's no way we could keep an unenclosed pool warm enough for use through the winter without running our heater constantly. Even then I have no idea how well the temperature would be maintained.
Thanks for the comment about the noise, I didn't think of that. That may require yet another bump in my budget to cover some walls and insulation for a room to put the equipment in. Currently just have open rafters in the basement, so I'm sure we'd hear the pump going when on the 1st floor if we don't put up some drywall and insulation.
How much water are we talking about for Backwashing?
- May 23, 2015
- 24,379
- Pool Size
- 16000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
Depends on the filter type, pump size, etc, but typically you're talking about a few hundred gallons of water for a standard backwash.
In a confined basement space, a sand filter or DE filter may not be the best choice as they typically require an annual tear down where you use lots of water to clean the sand bed or wash off the DE grid elements. It's messy work and doing that in a basement would be "challenging" to say the least.
So, you'd probably be better off just getting the largest possible cartridge filter you can afford and just open that up and remove the cartridges for cleaning as-needed. No backwashing necessary. If you get the largest filter size possible, you can reduce the frequency of filter cleanings to once or twice per year.
In a confined basement space, a sand filter or DE filter may not be the best choice as they typically require an annual tear down where you use lots of water to clean the sand bed or wash off the DE grid elements. It's messy work and doing that in a basement would be "challenging" to say the least.
So, you'd probably be better off just getting the largest possible cartridge filter you can afford and just open that up and remove the cartridges for cleaning as-needed. No backwashing necessary. If you get the largest filter size possible, you can reduce the frequency of filter cleanings to once or twice per year.
Residential go to 400K, but you can get commercial units that go up to 2MM.
I seem to remember one of our members has built an enclosure, like a greenhouse over their pool. Posted about it not too long ago.
You can buy inflatable domes for this purpose. Probably the cheapest "structural" solution ($5,000-ish, or more). Or you can get a retractable enclosure at the high end ($75,000-ish, or more). Both solutions will still need pool heat as well as heat for the enclosure.
I believe this is the post I was remembering. I can't see the images here at work but I'm sure it was this one. Might be more before or after it.
Over my head in Wisconsin - Page 9
Over my head in Wisconsin - Page 9
- May 23, 2015
- 24,379
- Pool Size
- 16000
- Surface
- Plaster
- Chlorine
- Salt Water Generator
- SWG Type
- Pentair Intellichlor IC-60
True. But I doubt a homeowner can get the permitting approvals needed to instal a commercial unit of that size nor would the gas company likely have a residential gas meter capable of supplying that much gas flow. Your talking about a gas powered heater 5X larger than anything allowed in normal residential construction. Maybe our gas experts can chime in, but that doesn't seem feasible to me.
I've had one pool builder tell me that the equipment would have to go inside, and another one just told me that it would be fine running outside all winter. Which one is correct?