My natural gas heater was DOA when we moved into our place in September and I am in the process of trying to replace it. I am having trouble deciding between natural gas and electric heat pump. I have read a ton here and elsewhere and generally understand the differences -- my main issue is assessing possible operating costs since I don't have any historical info on my specific pool.
The pool equipment guy I am working with (who is great) is somewhat on the fence. I think he is leaning toward thinking we should go electric but hasn't installed quite as many (relative to gas) to have a good feel for the ongoing costs.
We have a 17k gallon in-ground and are in Seattle. Ideally we could use the heater to give us some extra time on each end of the season plus keep it up during the summer.
For the upfront costs:
- currently have natural gas and the gas meter is right near the equipment.
- cost of equipment (incl install) would be $3000 more for the heat pump (compared to gas)
- this 3k doesn't include upgrading the electric for which I have a quote of $1100 and it'd be a bit of a pain
- so total of $4100 more upfront to go electric
I ran a couple of the calculators for ongoing costs.
Roughly it seemed like gas could cost somewhere in the $2000-3000 / year (!) and electric would be about half of that - $1000-2000.
Obviously this depends on the assumptions I use but I was trying to make my best reasonable guesses and generally focused on May/June through Sept/Oct.
At those high costs an electric would pay itself back in only a few years and might be worth it.
However -- those numbers are without a cover which I have read here makes a big difference. I don't have one but could certainly get one, though my pool shape and fence situation would make it tricky.
Using the calculators WITH a cover shows much lower costs, like $500 /year for gas and $200-300 electric. In this scenario I would probably stick with gas since the payback is long and electric means dealing with an extra contractor and install.
All that said, I have no practical experience and worry that I am over focusing on the calculators with possibly bad assumptions.
I'd love any practical experiences people could share (especially if your weather is anything like Seattle) that might help me. Even just some actual operating costs you have seen in practice that I can benchmark against would be really helpful, or advice on anything I may not be thinking about.
Thanks very much!!
Lewis
The pool equipment guy I am working with (who is great) is somewhat on the fence. I think he is leaning toward thinking we should go electric but hasn't installed quite as many (relative to gas) to have a good feel for the ongoing costs.
We have a 17k gallon in-ground and are in Seattle. Ideally we could use the heater to give us some extra time on each end of the season plus keep it up during the summer.
For the upfront costs:
- currently have natural gas and the gas meter is right near the equipment.
- cost of equipment (incl install) would be $3000 more for the heat pump (compared to gas)
- this 3k doesn't include upgrading the electric for which I have a quote of $1100 and it'd be a bit of a pain
- so total of $4100 more upfront to go electric
I ran a couple of the calculators for ongoing costs.
Roughly it seemed like gas could cost somewhere in the $2000-3000 / year (!) and electric would be about half of that - $1000-2000.
Obviously this depends on the assumptions I use but I was trying to make my best reasonable guesses and generally focused on May/June through Sept/Oct.
At those high costs an electric would pay itself back in only a few years and might be worth it.
However -- those numbers are without a cover which I have read here makes a big difference. I don't have one but could certainly get one, though my pool shape and fence situation would make it tricky.
Using the calculators WITH a cover shows much lower costs, like $500 /year for gas and $200-300 electric. In this scenario I would probably stick with gas since the payback is long and electric means dealing with an extra contractor and install.
All that said, I have no practical experience and worry that I am over focusing on the calculators with possibly bad assumptions.
I'd love any practical experiences people could share (especially if your weather is anything like Seattle) that might help me. Even just some actual operating costs you have seen in practice that I can benchmark against would be really helpful, or advice on anything I may not be thinking about.
Thanks very much!!
Lewis