Heat pump for an above ground pool

[archjeb]

Hello folks,

Seriously thinking of installing a Heat Pump for a 24' above ground pool. Any of you using this instead of gas? I'm curious to how well they work vs the marketing material you see on Hayward and other sites.

I'm thinking of going with an 85K BTU unit to keep the pool around 82-84degrees. Additionally, I'm using a solar cover to keep heat loss down during the night.

-J

 

[pooldv]

Our heat pump is great. We have the Hayward HP50HA which is 45-50k BTU. It helped to keep us swimming all last October and get us started March 13th this year. It heats our 20k gal pool about 1 degree every 3 hours. Yes, the solar cover is a must.

 

[ikorodu]

Whilst not on the same scale as you guys, I have a heat pump for our 14ft bestway pool.

Its a 10kw (34k BTU) Hydro S.

Have to say its fantastic! Our pool only holds around 11000 liters and I have the heat pump set to run for a maximum of 6 hours per day (I run it in the morning as my electricity is cheaper then). It raises the temperature very quickly and is a bit over sized for our pool. The solar cover is a must. Air temperature here has been around 70F but my pool water is at 84F to 86F.

I'm certain that we would not have used the pool anywhere near as much as we do if we didn't have the heat pump.

 

[rajung]

I like our heat pump,but the one on house does have drawbacks in winter here.
Don't use the pool heater much lately since the kids are gone and pool doesn't get the daily use like it used tne thing I dont like is I have my pool pump run on a timer for 8 hours and when it shuts off the heater will go into lock out due to no water pressure.
It does not remember to turn back on when flow starts again so its a hassle going back and turning heater on, mostly the reason I haven't run it this year.Not sure how I would go about getting them to sync together.

 

[CJadamec]

Love my heat pump its quiet and very reasonable to operate. Would install another one in a heart beat. Opened my pool the first weekend of May this year and the heat pump had the pool above 80 that whole wet miserable month we had here in the Northeast. For the luxury of being able to pull the cover and go swimming every nice day we had in May it cost me about $100 on my utility bill. That was before I got my solar panels put in.

Now with my solar panels going the heat pump only picks up the slack on days where there isn't enough sun and the pool stays right around 88.

 

[Catanzaro]

I am in the process of getting a heat pump, instead of a gas heater. Ironically, the heat pump will cost less. The only issue is finding someone to actually return my calls and not argue with me about the heat pump over a gas heater in NJ. Unfortunately, I have clearance issues and the cost is actually about 3K-4K more because of the gas line, over installing a heat pump. I only need a bump of a few degree's for about 4 months. Non one really goes swimming when the temperature is between 70-80 degree's. I also would use a solar cover during the colder days.

The manufacturer recommended 117K heat pump, which sure appears to be way oversized for my pool. What am I missing about sizing? Thanks!

 

[CJadamec]

The difference is with an IG pool you have the mass of the pool walls in the ground to heat as well as the water. With an AG pool you don't have that much extra mass to heat. So for the same amount water an IG pool will get a bigger heater recommended. For your pool a 110kBTU heat pump isn't oversized.

Also as for sizing it the same argument as with gas heaters when we say get the biggest one your gas line will support. You are going to use the same amount of energy to heat you pool no mater which size heater you have the bigger heater will just get the job done faster.

 

[Catanzaro]

Cjadamec:

Yes, you are correct. I saw this with an AGP as the water temperature was hot. The sun beats down on the sides all day long and it is a big difference. I actually have a waterfall line that is closed (2" with a 90 degree elbow), which is controlled by a Jandy Valve (closed), buried in the ground. I was even thinking of placing a solar heater in the left corner (which would not look to bad) and slowly running water through it. I would visibly not be able to see the white flexible 2" run because it would go underground.

The only downside would be that from the edge of concrete 9' back to the pool water, I would have to run a hose. A black hose could be the solution. When building the pool, I should have had a an extra return plumbed and this concept would of worked great. The roof is not an option as the run would be at the other end of the house.