Considering adding HEATER to just-started-construction...thoughts?

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court77375

court77375

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Apr 27, 2017
23
Tomball, TX
We didn't include a heater in our original design because I'm not getting a spa. Wondering how many of the Houston and other South-Texas (and other southern states) HAVE and USE a pool heater or wish they'd put one in during construction?

If you have one, how often do you heat the pool during our short winter season?

I'm really considering adding it at this point (pool isn't dug yet) at a cost of:
[FONT=&quot]"3395.00 for the 400k heater[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]and some minor gas line fees apprx $350.00"[/FONT]

Thanks!
Court
 
I personally doubt you need one unless you want to swim in the winter down there. It may get a bit costly to run. I think at most you'd get a month on each end of the season.

You could always consider a heater/cooler instead. In the summer pool water can get swampy feeling, so some folks in hot areas have heatpumps that work in reverse as coolers.

Ask your builder about that.

Another suggestion is to ask the builder to leave room on your equipment pad for an added heater down the line if you so chose to later.

Maddie :flower:
 
3,400 for a 400k btu heater? That seems pretty high.

I just replaced a 250k btu heater with a Raypak 266k and the
heater itself was 1500


I could be wrong but as Yippee said I think you want one
of those heat pump units instead for your climate zone.
 
A small heat pump will give you a heat boost when you want it and also cool the pool in july/august. We have solar panels and a small heat pump. Our pool is shaded a lot of the day and we like warm water. We use a solar cover also. We swam all last October and aphave been swimming since March 13th this year because of our little heat pump and a solar cover. We like our water 87-89. I paid about 1500 bucks for my HP50HA heat oump and installed it myself last September. And it only needs a 20a breaker.
 
I am in the pearland, tx area..... we build a pool only with no spa..... yes we regret not getting a heater for the pool, as you know we haven't had a real "winter" here in the past 2 years, a heater would of been perfect for kids to swim during their "no school" holidays, thanksgiving, xmas and even spring break, even easter weekend..... as you may know weather is great but the pool water itself is a little too cold to swim in and a heater would of been perfect to extend swimming seasons, we will be adding a heater hopefully in the future.
 
Swimming in the winter doesn't sound like a horrible prospect.

YippeeSkippy said:
I personally doubt you need one unless you want to swim in the winter down there. It may get a bit costly to run. I think at most you'd get a month on each end of the season.

You could always consider a heater/cooler instead. In the summer pool water can get swampy feeling, so some folks in hot areas have heatpumps that work in reverse as coolers.

Ask your builder about that.

Another suggestion is to ask the builder to leave room on your equipment pad for an added heater down the line if you so chose to later.

Maddie :flower:
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Good to know. I have a friend who could probably help me install.

pooldv said:
A small heat pump will give you a heat boost when you want it and also cool the pool in july/august. We have solar panels and a small heat pump. Our pool is shaded a lot of the day and we like warm water. We use a solar cover also. We swam all last October and aphave been swimming since March 13th this year because of our little heat pump and a solar cover. We like our water 87-89. I paid about 1500 bucks for my HP50HA heat oump and installed it myself last September. And it only needs a 20a breaker.
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That's exactly what I'm thinking. If I'm wearing shorts at Christmas, why can't I be swimming? ;-)

ap2002 said:
I am in the pearland, tx area..... we build a pool only with no spa..... yes we regret not getting a heater for the pool, as you know we haven't had a real "winter" here in the past 2 years, a heater would of been perfect for kids to swim during their "no school" holidays, thanksgiving, xmas and even spring break, even easter weekend..... as you may know weather is great but the pool water itself is a little too cold to swim in and a heater would of been perfect to extend swimming seasons, we will be adding a heater hopefully in the future.
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So just ask them to add a pad and run the lines and look at putting the pump in myself?

Big Will said:
I agree with yippee, for $350 to run lines it's worth it to run the lines and you can always decide later if you want a heater. You can get one for 2k at 400btu pentair
Click to expand...
 
Yes have them add the lines cause once the pool is finished and deck is down it will probably take some serious demo to run the lines and cost way more $$$.
Plus if you buy the heater for let's say $1500-2k I'm sure if you called a pool plumber and said lines are already run and you just need the install I would guess it would be under $500.
Matter fact call some plumbers and tell them you have a heater (Google one you like) and tell them the lines are run and ask them how much just for the install
I do these type of things all the time so I can find out how much my time is worth and if I want to self install something or pay
 
And just to add this, if you do go with a gas heater instead of a heat pump, Raypak is the
recommended brand. It has less parts than other heater brands so less to go wrong
and less cost to replace should it have issues in the future.
 
Whats the recommended brand (energy efficient) for an electric heat pump that will also help keep the pool cool?

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Whats the recommended brand (energy efficient) for an electric heat pump that will also help keep the pool cool?
 

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We have a natural gas heater and have used it several times. Heated the pool on Christmas to 90 and saw no significant increase in our bill. I was all for having one but hubby wasn't. Obviously I won that discussion and now he's glad we have it. I should add ours is also 400 btu.
 
court77375 said:
We didn't include a heater in our original design because I'm not getting a spa. Wondering how many of the Houston and other South-Texas (and other southern states) HAVE and USE a pool heater or wish they'd put one in during construction?

If you have one, how often do you heat the pool during our short winter season?

I'm really considering adding it at this point (pool isn't dug yet) at a cost of:
[FONT="][FONT=arial narrow]"3395.00 for the 400k heater[/FONT][/FONT][/COLOR]
[COLOR=#000000][FONT="]and some minor gas line fees apprx $350.00"[/FONT]

Thanks!
Court
Click to expand...

We have a spa so we use ours all of the time. Outside of using the spa we probably heat our pool, which is small, up about 12 to 15 times a year. If I know the weather is going to be nice say during the winter for a long weekend I will heat it up every day over that weekend. I can raise the temp on a warm sunny calm day about 4 degrees an hour. If I didn't have the spa I am not sure I would have a heater, but it is nice to say on a warm Christmas day lets go swimming.

One other thing to think about. It you don't use it all of the time the likely hood of it not working is probably greater. We use ours a lot for the spa and have had minor issues however my brother in law doesn't and has had constant issues with his heater.
 
Court,

If you decide to do a gas heater I just wanted to add that you may want to call your gas company and see if there is a cost associated with upgrading your gas meter to accomadate your pool heater and house. Our gas meter had to be changed out since it wasn't large enough....ours was no charge but I know of one in Cypress, Tx that their gas company is charging $450 for the larger gas meter. Just one more thing to think about :).

D
 
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