Bestway (Intex?) AGP in garage, full year solution for heat wanted.

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A electrical pad under the pool as in a tile floor or thinking out of the box (again) I was leaning towards the whole floor in our one car garage would be knocked down two inches to inlay driveway melt system that is connected to a natural gas boiler, the driveway would be one zone, the other zone would be four radiators lining each wall..since we are actually talking about these being used, I think an additional zone could be tied in to heater box that could have a bit of coiled copper that the pool water could be heated with....hum, how's the furnace in that house? Is it time for an upgrade?


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By the way, my Intex pool is out back, the other one that is in the basement looks like a small version of what your doing.


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all good ideas, but while my furnace is 15+ years old it currently has no problems, no dead motor, no failing burner, etc. I suppose IF my furnace fails I will consider adding some feature that can help in this.

Your tub DOES look like a smaller version: my gazebo might even have custom printed graphics INSIDE so it looks like a beach panorama inside :)
 
Well, there is no graphic designs within, just a fill high line and a minimum line....which just with this in progress project of mine is actually a gift of sorts because my wife's mother gave this to us with a supposedly broken pump because she wanted to replace this with a new one that worked.

It took about two hours to tear down and clean and get in working order....which wasn't a plain thing more like a haha moment knowing Intex doesn't sale a replacement pump or impeller and what we had was just a over sized tub.

Working on reworking a bigger pump than the 460 GPH 12 volt DC with a 500 or 700 GPH that has available parts and a bit of a filter upgrade next water change.

The pump that it came with, is less GPH than my fish tank filter, so DIY MOD and UPGRADE is my motto.


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I wanted to try and make at least ONE buy of equipment from my local pool shop, but quoting $900 for a 5.5K and $1000 for an 11K heater is just too far away from what I can order and do the same amount of work myself! They can't do the electrical, and they really have no special expertise getting the intex to hook up to the heater (youtube FTW).



I am leaning towards an insta-hot with a bypass line for lower GPM, then play with temp setting so the pool as a whole hits a comfy temp and then triggers the insta-hot to stop heating. More to come when I get that stuff sorted.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/IHeat-9-kW-Real-Time-Modulating-2-GPM-Electric-Tankless-Water-Heater-S-9/205651088
is my current candidate- waterproof housing, external/rain/water ok, waterproof control panel so I "can" touch it if I'm wet (still not planning on it).


And I will be ordering a T100 (?) testing kit over the weekend.
 
Dgephri said:
I wanted to try and make at least ONE buy of equipment from my local pool shop, but quoting $900 for a 5.5K and $1000 for an 11K heater is just too far away from what I can order and do the same amount of work myself! They can't do the electrical, and they really have no special expertise getting the intex to hook up to the heater (youtube FTW).



I am leaning towards an insta-hot with a bypass line for lower GPM, then play with temp setting so the pool as a whole hits a comfy temp and then triggers the insta-hot to stop heating. More to come when I get that stuff sorted.

http://www.homedepot.com/p/IHeat-9-kW-Real-Time-Modulating-2-GPM-Electric-Tankless-Water-Heater-S-9/205651088
is my current candidate- waterproof housing, external/rain/water ok, waterproof control panel so I "can" touch it if I'm wet (still not planning on it).


And I will be ordering a T100 (?) testing kit over the weekend.
Click to expand...

You should search the TFP threads for tankless water heater discussions and I think you will find some of them illuminating. One thing to remember about these types of heaters is that that are not really designed for continuous flow heating. At 2 GPM, your 4,000 gallon pool will take 2000 minutes or 33-1/3 hours to turn over and heat the full volume of water. At 9kW, that's 300kWh of electrical power used or ~ 1.023 million BTUs. It takes roughly 1 BTU to raise 1 lb of water 1 deg F. So, 4000 gallons of water is 33,200lbs. That means your heater can raise the water temperature by ~31F or a little more than 1 deg F per hour. This, of course, assumes perfect efficiency of the heater (all electrical power goes to heat which it does not) and that your pool is perfectly insulated (which it is not). So I would expect your heater to do a fair bit less than 1 deg F per hour. You should figure out what your electrical rates are because 300kWh at $0.15/kWh is $45, however, you will have on-going electrical costs from heat loss so this heater could be running non-stop 24/7. That's a lot of money to keep a pool heated.

Either the TF-100 from TFTestkits.net OR the Taylor K-2006 from Amazon. Both will get you what you need. You should get a SpeedStir as well, believe me, it will make your testing life A LOT easier.
 
Power here in Oregon is $.12 or so.

The tankless thing claims 99.8% efficient but regardless it's a lot more efficient than my current gas hot water heater.

I figure (maybe incorrectly) that no matter which model I buy it will take the same BTUs to heat right? Speeding up the heating process doesn't eliminate BTUs just starts loss sooner?

Personally I don't much care if my $200 solution takes two days to reach 75f. I am more worried that after it reaches that temp my humidity spirals out of control.
 
JoyfulNoise said:
You should search the TFP threads for tankless water heater discussions and I think you will find some of them illuminating. One thing to remember about these types of heaters is that that are not really designed for continuous flow heating. At 2 GPM, your 4,000 gallon pool will take 2000 minutes or 33-1/3 hours to turn over and heat the full volume of water. At 9kW, that's 300kWh of electrical power used or ~ 1.023 million BTUs. It takes roughly 1 BTU to raise 1 lb of water 1 deg F. So, 4000 gallons of water is 33,200lbs. That means your heater can raise the water temperature by ~31F or a little more than 1 deg F per hour. This, of course, assumes perfect efficiency of the heater (all electrical power goes to heat which it does not) and that your pool is perfectly insulated (which it is not). So I would expect your heater to do a fair bit less than 1 deg F per hour. You should figure out what your electrical rates are because 300kWh at $0.15/kWh is $45, however, you will have on-going electrical costs from heat loss so this heater could be running non-stop 24/7. That's a lot of money to keep a pool heated.

Either the TF-100 from TFTestkits.net OR the Taylor K-2006 from Amazon. Both will get you what you need. You should get a SpeedStir as well, believe me, it will make your testing life A LOT easier.
Click to expand...



Thanks for pointing me to those threads...I read a bunch of them...and the most successful one talks about how he insulated his pool on all sides.

In my context, I basically have R-24 (?) full wall and ceiling insulation all around my pool with a large air space (the garage itself) surrounding it. True my room will warm up, and eventually they will both be at 72-74F year round (100% fine with that).


Except for "duty cycle" I fail to see how a Pool heater that needs 50amps to heat is, technically, that much different from a tankless that needs 50amps. If one were 99% and the other 75% efficient, clearly big difference in cost to use. Most all of the heaters are exchangers: pipe with water, heating element in another pipe > heating water.


I guess what I'm trying to say is "I don't see the difference, but everyone claims there is one." If amperage puts BTUs into water, given an equal efficiency, then it only becomes about how FAST those BTUs go into the water, and how FAST that input is lost?

If I don't care about 6Hrs vs 2Days to reach peak temp, and my room can contain the heat better than any solar blanket or blue foam board...then where, in my situation, is the gain/payback for a more costly Pool heater working at full purpose 1-2X a year to rush the heating, and sitting at 10-15% maintenance the other 333Days per year?

 
I hunted around and found some more documentation on the guts of the two different types of units. Yes, it comes down to duty-cycle/endurance differences in the product design.

I didn't want pay double the cost of an endless hot water system when the main visible difference is the fitting sizes.

Are there any pool brands that integrate with "Wink" or Z-wave monitoring for Home Automation? I know some pool have remotes, but that is a standalone system and I would hope for integration into one of the emerging Internet of Things environments...

So for my 4K pool with something like 1500gph (the 1/2hp pump from Intex/Bestway) should I be shopping ONLY 11K heaters? I will check wire gauge but I think I can swap out my 50A breaker for 60A without rewiring all the way over to the location.
 

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tomorrow I will be ordering, some variant of an 11Kw heater, and then scheduling electrician to come out and upgrade my breaker and wire it up.

After that will be some plumbing work to connect it. Will post some shots when work is underway.
 
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  • Raypak 001640 Elsr11022 - 11 Kw 240V Heater will be shipped by BLINQ.
    Estimated delivery: Jan. 27, 2016 - Jan. 29, 2016
  • Taylor 9265 - Magneticstirrer, Speedstir, Start-Uppack(Uses9198 & 6101) will be shipped by Amato Industries, Inc..
    Estimated delivery: Jan. 27, 2016 - Feb. 1, 2016
  • INTEX Above Ground LED Magnetic Swimming Pool Light 28687E will be shipped by VMInnovations.
    Estimated delivery: Jan. 27, 2016 - Jan. 29, 2016
  • Intex Solar Cover for 18ft X 9ft Rectangular Frame Pools will be shipped by Amazon.com.
    Guaranteed delivery: Jan. 25, 2016
 
well...the recommended electrician came out, looked at the situation, measured some things, talked about the problems, then went over it with his boss, and elected to stay away from it. :p

At least he was honest and timely in calling me back and telling me rather than letting it drop and needing to be called to find out. :)

I did get a vent for HVAC put into the garage part of my furnace, so air temp is slowly climbing as one vent is heating my entire garage. I won't be opening the garage door any time soon!
 
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did he give any reason why he walked away from it? I'm curious as to what he ad his boss may have said. I am betting that the host of electrical code violations that you created when you put the pool in the garage may have swayed him to stay away. Things like electrical wiring overhead, non code compliant wiring in a pool room such as insulated grounds. GFCI circuits for everything???? Obvious lack of any sort of a bonding system in place (I know that temp pools don't fall under this code requirement. It does not mean that the danger does not exist though)
 
My garage is already GFCI'd on the 120v. The pump itself has a GFCI on top of that. I'm not blind to the issues and respect input on them.

He didn't actually itemize the most central issues but my guess is that his mention of the install location distance from the pool being less than 20', the overhead garage door opener, even the panel itself is closer than 20'.

I knew it was possible and I can respect their choice. I'm not going to shop electricians until I find one crazy enough to break the codes. I find nothing saying the pool is against code but other things like heaters and overhead lights become problems.

My passive heating from the simple HVAC vent has already raised water temp 3F so until summer I might have to tough it out with very slow gains.

Reading up on natural gas heaters I have serious install problems as well unless I choose to run supply pipes long distances.
 
My temps are slowly climbing. My vent keeps the garage at or about 65-67F and the pool continues to come up from 57F, then 59F, now about 61F.

I also set up the Intex LED light: Nifty thing that uses magnets and induction power to allow it to grip the soft wall of the pool without any power cords in the water.
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With the garage overhead lights off it creates a really nice reflection/glow on the ceiling.
 
I have finished measurements and setup of the first half of my "wet room" that will surround the pool and keep splashing and sloshing contained even when the kids get rowdy.


I will order a custom printed 4ft high tarp-banner and put the print on the inside. That will be held in place through the installed grommets and use zipties around another PVC pipe inside at the top to hold it all up.



Then I will have RareEarth bar magnets holding the lower edge to the pool rim so all splashes run back down into the pool.

Together with the Intex LED light it should make swimming inside the WetRoom a cheap simulation of a nighttime swim in the tropics.
 

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