Heater Recomendation

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Ross P

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May 7, 2013
6
Hercules Califronia
Hello and welcome to my first post.

I own a pool spa combo. I heat the pool with a solar heater and am very happy with doing so. The spa on the other hand is in need of a new heater. The heater i currently have is a gas guzzling dinosaur that is on its last legs. Its large enough to heat the pool and then some. I am looking to replace it but with something much smaller, because i am only interested in heating the spa with it. Is this something that is commonly done and if so a little guidance in the right direction and a suggestion on an actual unit would be much appreciated. The spa is approximately 500 gallons. Thanks for any help you guys can give me.
 
:wave: Welcome to TFP!!!

Actually the heater size does not really affect the cost to heat and maintain the water, it only affects the speed at which this happens.
For example:
A 400k BTU heater may heat the spa up to temp in 1 hour
A 250k BTU heater would heat the spa in 1.6 hours
But, both would use a very similar amount of gas to accomplish the same job.
 
Hey Thanks for the info Jblizzle I appreciate it.

Sure Thing Isaac. I live in the San Francisco bay area of Northern California. Im not quite sure how these compare but I Pay on average about $1.20 a Therm for gas and $0.14 a Kilowatt hour for Electrical. The amount of my gas bill tends to be about double my electric bill in the winter but we are running the furnace constantly because of our sad single pane aluminum windows. I hope this is the info you are looking for.
 
Thanks for the suggestion Newbie. About how long would you say it takes for your spa to heat up. Someone told me that heat pumps were not the way to go in my area because of our lack of humidity. It didn't make a huge amount of sense at the time but that's what I heard. The thought of using electricity instead of gas to heat the spa is very appealing I must say.
 
First off gas is really the way to go to heat a spa. Especially if you want to heat it during cooler weather or during the night time hours. Electric heat pumps are great for bodies of water that don't require quick heat ups and when you have outside temps that are fairly warm to begin with. Remember, electric heat pumps draw in the outside warmth to help generate heat. No warm/hot weather outside, no/little warm generated by electric heater.

With a 400K BTU heater you should be able to heat your spa up rather quickly. Usually you can get close to 4 degrees about every 1.5 minutes or there about. A 250K BTU heater you will get about about 2 degrees in that 1.5 minute.

Rates for gas aren't going to be an issue if you want to use your spa. Gas is the only solution to heating a body of water in a relatively quick amount of time.
 
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