Immersion heater

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tl01

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Oct 4, 2015
12
Texas
This little freeze we just had in Texas was a nightmare for my new pool. It was intense and I spent two nights … every two hours dealing with ice and 7-8 hours during the day doing the same thing.

I am looking for ideas to keep my spa and the channel around my infinity edge spa from freezing again.

First, I plan to heat my pool next time if conditions will allow it. But, I need another idea. Is there an immersion heater that would be safe to put in my spa even to just increase the water temp a little? We have pebble sheen as the surface and I just don’t know enough about immersion heaters to know how I could use one without harming the surface.

Any other ideas for keeping ice from forming. The ice was forming faster than I could brush it away. Thank you!
 
Was the ice in your spa or channel causing any damage or restricting water flow?

Why I ask, is there seems to be a misconception about the real dangers in the freezing temps. The primary goal is to keep water moving to protect your pipes and equipment from freezing and being damaged. The biggest danger is the water flow stopping in a deep freeze and freezing in your pipes, pump, etc in as little as an hour. If that happens, I would argue that it doesnt matter if your water temp is 32 or you heated it to 50, its still going to freeze in the same amount of time.

Ice on the surface doesnt pose much of a risk as long as you can keep your pool water circulating.
 
JJ_Tex said:
Was the ice in your spa or channel causing any damage or restricting water flow?

Why I ask, is there seems to be a misconception about the real dangers in the freezing temps. The primary goal is to keep water moving to protect your pipes and equipment from freezing and being damaged. The biggest danger is the water flow stopping in a deep freeze and freezing in your pipes, pump, etc in as little as an hour. If that happens, I would argue that it doesnt matter if your water temp is 32 or you heated it to 50, its still going to freeze in the same amount of time.

Ice on the surface doesnt pose much of a risk as long as you can keep your pool water circulating.
Click to expand...
Yes restricting water flow. There was no way to keep up with it…. The channel froze and the ice was so thick on my spa wall where it trickles down that then the water would find sneaky ways out and just spill all over my patio and not go into the pool.

Applying warm not hot water to the channel was the only way to keep it flowing but I don’t want to put that on the tile when it is that cold. But still the ice on the side was as thick as the channel is wide.
 
Ok, I get it. I too had to babysit my pool to keep the skimmer free of ice.

There has been some talk about possibly using a pond heater/de-icer to keep a certain area of the pool free from ice. I was thinking of playing around with one next time to keep the area in front of my skimmer ice free.

I want to be 100% clear though, this is not a TFP recommendation and would only be used for a small portion of the pool. Your primary defense would still be to keep the water moving via your freeze protection, or shutting down and draining/winterizing.
 
Freeze protection seemed to have issues this year, across several models/brands. Were they the 15 problems out of all of our members in the artic blast zone, or were they the 15 people who realized there was an issue ?

I would disable every timer, program, etc and just run manual at medium to high RPM.
 
Newdude said:
Freeze protection seemed to have issues this year, across several models/brands. Were they the 15 problems out of all of our members in the artic blast zone, or were they the 15 people who realized there was an issue ?

I would disable every timer, program, etc and just run manual at medium to high RPM.
Click to expand...
It is just how it is. It wasn’t the freeze protection. It is a small channel of water that doesn’t get enough flow and the flow over the infinity edge just froze in place when the wind was blowing. With no wind it is fine. Tonight we have some wind but it won’t be as cold as it was the night everything froze and today everything melted off. It is running at 2700 rpms and the pump is 2.7 hp.. so the flow isn’t week. Even at full speed the flow doesn’t change much. I need a way to keep ice from forming…one the sides of the spa.
 
Newdude said:
Yours wasn't. I saw enough posts this year to question it if I was using it myself. (y)

Got any pics ? You explained it well but they never hurt.
Click to expand...
Here is a pic. This is after I was trying to remove some ice. The ice was was essentially touching the edge of the channel and then as you can see the water would just roll off onto my pavers…and would slowly drain the pool. This all built up essentially over night. The channel also was solid on top. Some flow still underneath.. but the water was just filling up on top of what was frozen.
I added small half filled water bottles into the channel to try and relieve the ice pressure..2 on each side and one in each corner.

This freeze wasn’t that bad but we did have some gnarly winds.. but gnarly winds are pretty common for us. So I’m trying to think of a plan to avoid this build up.

Tonight is cold again and windy. Luckily everything has melted off but I can’t fathom how hot the destruction would be if Feb 2021 freeze happens again.

I was outside every 2 hours for two night in a row. It was more stressful than a colicky newborn!IMG_2359.png
 
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Can you simply turn off the overflow feature so you pool can run and your spa can run, but won’t have the issue of water spilling over?

This is the pond de-icer I mentioned which may help.
Farm Innovators 1250 Watts 7.5 Inch Cast Aluminum Floating Outdoor Pond De Icer Heater with Built in Thermostat Control and 10 Foot Cord, Green Amazon.com
 
JJ_Tex said:
Can you simply turn off the overflow feature so you pool can run and your spa can run, but won’t have the issue of water spilling over?

This is the pond de-icer I mentioned which may help.
Farm Innovators 1250 Watts 7.5 Inch Cast Aluminum Floating Outdoor Pond De Icer Heater with Built in Thermostat Control and 10 Foot Cord, Green Amazon.com
Click to expand...
Maybe. I guess the water will freeze in the channel still? Which makes me nervous bc it is such a small spot?

Excuse my ignorance.. how would the water still circulate to the spa if it doesn’t flow over. I’ll have to ask my pool person.
 

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JJ_Tex said:
Can you simply turn off the overflow feature so you pool can run and your spa can run, but won’t have the issue of water spilling over?

This is the pond de-icer I mentioned which may help.
Farm Innovators 1250 Watts 7.5 Inch Cast Aluminum Floating Outdoor Pond De Icer Heater with Built in Thermostat Control and 10 Foot Cord, Green Amazon.com
Click to expand...
Would you put that heater on a mat or anything in the hot tub? I know no one is an expert on this…I’m just trying to think of everything. I don’t want it to burn anything. Ugh.
 
it just plugs in and floats on top of the water and keeps the immediate area around it ice free. It could float in the trough or spa.

Here is a pic from the internet.
IMG_9204.jpeg
 
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