Buying a new heater one year before pool refresh - any reason to worry?

[Stomp]

We've gone over 12 years without a pool heater (didn't work when we bought the house and I never fixed it), but we're finally ready to bite the bullet.

The rub is that we're going to do a refresh of the pool next year (basically new anything visible to the eye, possibly add a baja shelf, but otherwise leave same shape/etc), and my thought was I'd likely get it then.

I can't think of a reason why I couldn't get a new heater now and just keep it when we rebuild, but wanted to see if the experts here could think of anything...beyond paying for installation twice.

Recognizing we haven't gotten deep into plans on this 40 year old pool, at this time the one main change I'm wanting to do is going from chlorine to salt water.

From what little research I've done it sounds like the Raypak 400k would be my goal (if our gas line can handle it).

Thx for any feedback.

 

[wireform]

Definitely not an issue although you may want to figure out what would be your new equipment and if you'll be going with full automation at the time. You only want to buy once so then you would buy the heater now and just upgrade everything else at the time.

 

[Stomp]

Thx so much for the confirmation. Later today I’ll pop over to the build/design forum for feedback - super excited to be back here.

 

[Dtkokay]

Make sure the heater is installed with a bypass. If you get new plaster, you’ll want the ability to avoid running water through the heater for a while. Plus, the bypass gives the ability to do maintenance on the heater without taking the pool offline. I suspect your heater is already plumbed with a bypass though.

 

[ajw22]

Make sure the heater is installed with a bypass. If you get new plaster, you’ll want the ability to avoid running water through the heater for a while. Plus, the bypass gives the ability to do maintenance on the heater without taking the pool offline. I suspect your heater is already plumbed with a bypass though.

Heater Bypass - Further Reading

www.troublefreepool.com

 

[Stomp]

Thanks, everyone. The new heater is installed, and I did go w/ the Variflow that has a built-in bypass.

Next up I'm going to research the way to be able to heat the pool when I want (what setting to use), while not interrupting my programmed pump times when the heater is not in use (I have it run slow and long outside of peak electric hours). The worker who installed it said I could consider using Backwash mode (change the backwash time to run much longer), but I think I'd prefer to program one of my "Feature" buttons.

My big question is this - if I turn on the heater and run my heater "feature" on the pump for whatever the set amount of time is, but then forget to go out to turn off the heater before the feature time runs out, does the heater automatically shut down when water flow is too slow/little (or none)? I don't want to accidentally do damage to the heater because the water flow is too little. Sorry for the rookie question - first pool heater ever ;-)

 

[Stomp]

Old one for good measure ;-)

 

[ajw22]

What heater did you install?

The heater has a pressure switch and it should shut down when your pump turns off. Although that is not the recommended way since you should let water run through the heater for five minutes to cool it down after the heater turns off before you shut off the pump.

 

[Stomp]

What heater did you install?

The heater has a pressure switch and it should shut down when your pump turns off. Although that is not the recommended way since you should let water run through the heater for five minutes to cool it down after the heater turns off before you shut off the pump.

Thanks for the advice above - I'll spend some time on this site and in the user manual to better understand it (and heaters in general).

We ended up with the Jandy JXi 400k Versaflo (forgot I hadn't updated this thready, but instead the one in the pool build section). One thing the installer mentioned is that are designed in a way that makes them a bit more rodent resistant (there is enough foliage here that they are in play), and on top of that the auto bypass and associated energy savings sold me on it. I understand there is a bias toward other models, but felt sufficiently comfortable based on everything he shared.