Need advice on Coates Heater

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R

rrwallis

0
Sep 5, 2012
3
Greetings!
Myself and two others have bought a new pool for our swim therapy business. The pool is a 12x24 and is around 9600 gallons. I am really new to the above ground pool world. This will be inside and needs to be heated to 92 degrees. We had a 12x20 pool that was heated with NG. When we moved into our new lease space, it would have cost over $1000 just to plumb the gas and install the venting. So we opted to search for an electric heater.

I found a Coates Heater 54 kw model 12454PHS-4, on Craigslist that had never been used. I bought it for $550. As the new ones go for over $2500, I thought I did well. However, the serial number indicates it was built in 2006 and after some research, well, it seems this is designed to heat a pool 4 times the size of ours.

So my question is; will this work for us? Can I utilize the heater even though it seems to be a monster compared to what we needed?

Thank you so much for your time!
 
Welcome to TFP!

I am not too familiar with that type of heater and I am sure someone will be along with more experience, but here are my thoughts.

I do not think you can go too large with a heater. It takes the same number of BTUs to heat the water and a larger heater will just do it faster.

The only downside is that the larger heater will require more power and thus larger wires and electric service. So getting it up and running might cost a little more than a smaller heater, but ignoring the install costs, the actual heating cost should be similar.



Posted from my Droid with Tapatalk ... sorry if my response is short ;)
 
According to the website for them, this heater requires 225 amps at 240 volts single phase. That is a lot of power. How much power do you have available at your location? It may cost more to have the electric ran than the cost to plumb the gas line.
 
danpik said:
According to the website for them, this heater requires 225 amps at 240 volts single phase. That is a lot of power. How much power do you have available at your location? It may cost more to have the electric ran than the cost to plumb the gas line.
Click to expand...

not to mention making that electric meter spin like a helicopter!
 
I think the hard part is going to be wiring it up. The one you have uses a 240V single phase service and a breaker of 300A! That's double the amount of juice powering our main panel, and those are some pretty big wires. You might have a chat with an electrician regarding the cost to wire this up.
 
oH Man!

I know we have 220v. There is conduit running from the breaker panel with a 220 plug, however I am out of practice when it comes to knowing what's required to run the plug. I'll have to check what kind of breaker is there. Thanks for welcoming me, I will probably be back many times! :lol:

On these types of heaters, will it still cost that much once the pool is heated up and running at the 92?
 
220/240 is a common voltage to most homes and small busineses. The amperage rating of the service is the important consideration here. You will need to look on the main service disconnect to see what the amperage rating of the service is. If you are not sure where to look for this, it is normaly the top breaker in the panel or a small disconnect box near the meter.

Provided that you did have the needed capacity in the service I doubt that the 220 recepticle you have would be rated for it. In fact I can guarantee it as this is a direct wire type of device and would never be seen on a plug type system.

The wire size for a service this big would 250 or 300MCM. This wire is about 9/16" diameter. Cost per foot is in the $7.00/ft range. Multiply that by three for the length of the service and add in the cost for a ground wire and conduit for the length also.
 
Yep, that is expensive cable:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/250-300MCM-300- ... 23100a9c17

You can get it for much cheaper in aluminum, but it would have to be uprated to 400MCM or more for that amperage draw, assuming you have the load center to handle it (e.g. a 4-500A 220V panel), and hopefully it is near to the place you will put the heater. But, I believe you will only need two load wires and a ground. Also, it may be possible to use smaller diameter cable for the ground, depending on your local code. While there are some hefty NEMA and Powerlock interconnects for large amperage draw, I doubt it would be practical for such an application. But you never know. In any event, I'd be curious what your electrician has to say.

As for power consumption, you can likely read up about the efficiency of the unit. I would assume that this pool would be used every day, requiring that the pool be heated often. Some way to minimize evaporation (and heat loss) would be important. As this is an AGP, there would be plenty of heat lost from the sides as well as from the top, so side insulation of some sort might help to minimize heat lost to the room (though you could just keep that room humid and at a temperature close to the water temp). In any event, it will certainly be expensive.
 
CraigMW said:
Yep, that is expensive cable:

But, I believe you will only need two load wires and a ground. Also, it may be possible to use smaller diameter cable for the ground, depending on your local code.
Click to expand...
Yep, you are right on the two leads. I was thinking sub panel for some reason.
 
Adding just a little to what bluegrassman said, you will need to purchase quite a bit of lubricating oil as well to use on that little wheel inside the electric meter....it's going to be a blur! :mrgreen:
 

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Lesson learned I hope. If you're running a business you need to invest wisely and not buy something from a place like craigslist to say a few bucks. The liability alone with it being a business should make you want to do things the right way and if that means you spend a bit more so be it.

Go back and do it right with the NG. Spend the money and don't look back. Cutting corners will get you or one of your clients hurt.
 
We did indeed learn a lesson! When we leased the space, the landlord said they did not want any vents put in the new roof, so we had to go Electric. My intention was not to cut corners as to cause a danger to people. I have never owned a pool heater before and didn't think that they were that different in the wiring. It was brand new and never used. I buy and sell on craigslist often and it's always with good intentions. That being said, I have learned a lot and will do way more research before purchasing anything more for the pool system. Who would have thought it would turn out to be such an intricate procedure? After telling the landlord that it would only be possible to go NG, she finally agreed. So we are going to keep our current NG heater and have it installed. I did find out that the heater we bought would heat a city pool and two of them would heat an olympic sized pool! But hey, we all get where we are through experience. Thanks for all of the comments and I'm sure I will be asking for more advise in the future.
 
Is there a way you could pipe the unit outside instead of venting thru the roof? Meaning you would run your pvc pipe for the heater outside, place the unit on a concrete pad, add electric, and be done with it. Not sure if that is an option for your setup.
 
Absolutely buying from Craigslist can be great and you can get some great deals. However, it's just opinion that if you are making a purchase for a business that you would buy something new and with a warranty and even something that comes with installation. Then you have all of your bases covered should something happen. Again, this is just my opinion.
 
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