Enormous pool heating costs

[lborne]

4 KW electrical heater? That is quite small, so I'm sure it is running 24/7. That's 2880 kw-hrs per month, at a rate of 20 cents per kwh (estimate - plug in your rate) = $576 per month.

With a 4400 gallon pool that is 10' x 14', and assuming you have a large roof area, you would do well with solar panels. You still might want a small gas or electric heater just to keep things at 82 when its cloudy or particuarly cold, but 4 KW is too small. If it were me, I'd install 240 square feet of solar panels on a south facing roof if possible and you should be able to maintain 82 since you are using a solar blanket.

 

[bk406]

Yes, that is a total electric heater much liike one of those little plug in tea heaters or a cup of tea, but much bigger. No wonder your electric bill was really, really high. I dont think many people use those anymore to heat a pool. They are really not efficient.

Now, in terms of what you would need for a good solution to heat your pool. You will get as many opinions as days in the week. So...here's mine. I would not get a heat pump. For what you guys want to do in terms of heating in the winter, it will not work too well and I can promise you wont be that satisfied. The options you have, IMO, are solar and gas. I'll say up front I dont have solar and where I am it wouldnt work too well anyway. If you look into it, see if there are others in your area that have it and see if they like it. A south facing roof, sun availability in the winter, and asthetics are all considerations. I'm sure it would work well in april-october? november? In the dead of winter, I'm not sure. Even in southern Cali, I'm not sure they would warm the pool where you would want it. My opinion, get a gas heater.

 

[Guest]

I agree with BK!

 

[Guest]

I had to look that one up, teapot, so I thought I would share it for others as "numb" as me!

pe·dan·tic (p-dntk)
adj.
Characterized by a narrow, often ostentatious concern for book learning and formal rules: a pedantic attention to details.

 

[teapot]

I had to look that one up, teapot, so I thought I would share it for others as "numb" as me!

pe·dan·tic (p-dntk)
adj.
Characterized by a narrow, often ostentatious concern for book learning and formal rules: a pedantic attention to details.

:lol:

 

[JohnT]

I'm a little amazed that it's even legal to install an electric heater at all in California. Does this pool by any chance fall under rules regulating spas, thus allowing it?

 

[chem geek]

The heater should have a thermostat so it should only be on when it needs to heat, but teapot is right that this will happen more frequently at night because the rate of heat loss will be faster since its proportional to the difference in temperature between the pool water and the air. A good insulating cover helps a lot.

Electricity in California is ridiculously expensive and makes an electric heater not a good option (unless it's a heat pump and it doesn't get too cold outside). As John wrote, it's surprising it's even allowed to use electric heat for a swimming pool in California. It would be far more economical to use natural gas instead. In the following, I am assuming you have an electric pool water heater, not a heat pump.

Southern California Edison rates for electric vary from 8 to 14 cents/KWh up to Baseline to 26 to 32 cents/KWh over 300% of Baseline. Long Beach is baseline regions 6 and 8 where the baseline is roughly 10 KWh/day in summer and winter (unless you have electric heat for your house in which case the baseline in winter is around 16). Let's assume you are at around 15 cents/KWh marginal rate.

The Long Beach Gas & Oil rates for gas are 31 cents per Therm up to the Baseline amount and 55 cents per Therm above the Baseline amount. The Baseline is 0.473 Therms/day in the summer and 1.691 Therms/day in the winter.

1 Therm is about 29.3 KWh. At the rates above with 15 cents/KWh vs. 55 cents per Therm and ignoring any efficiency differences between the two types of heaters, the electric heater costs 8 times more than a natural gas heater to heat the same amount of water! If you are using a heat pump, then it is still more expensive at these rates since the Coefficient of Performance (COP) is usually in the range of 3-7 and will be lower during the winter since the temperature difference between pool water and heat pump sink is greater, though you're probably looking more like a factor of 2 more expensive than natural gas at that point.

Richard