Large cold pool

[NyDon]

Hey y'all.

My pool is 20' x 60' with 49,000 gallons +/-. I was looking into a propane fired heater but I did a little math and it would cost me a Darn ton of money in propane. In speaking with the ffolks at Leslie's Pools; they said I needed about 400,000 btu's, to the tune of 4lbs of propane an hour. So I was wondering if y'all had any opinions on this.
One thing I was wondering is if there was a pellet burning pool heater? I can not find one for sale online. Any ideas?

Thank you

Don

 

[tim5055]

That sounds about right without pulling out a calculator. Pool heaters are thirsty devices. If it's available, natural gas is the way to go.

Step one is always to conserve what heat you have, so even a basic bubble pool blanket will help hold in the heat.

Once past natural gas, solar is the most common pool heater, but there are some heat pumps out there designed for pool use. I don't know who much you use your AC that far north, but thre is also a unit that ties into your home AC to take the heat form your system when it is in AC mode and transfer it to the pool.

I have never seen a commercial pellet poolheater, but I have seen soem web pages of people making poolheaters and hot tub heater using wood stoves. It's not a big jump from there, but it would need ot be homemade.

 

[Newdude]

Hey Don. As you already know, gallons need BTUs, and boy oh boy do you have alot of gallons to heat. My thought is maybe go with propane and a heat pump. While the propane heater would take more time than normal to heat your pool, once it was warm the heat pump would cost less to maintain it. Of course you'd have quite the initial investment running both sources out to the pool and purchasing 2 heaters.

Either way a solar cover is an absolute must. It will stop most of the evaporation that causes 70% of heat loss. I am a little south of you but overall the same general climate. When i had my heater running with no cover, the steam coming off the pool on colder nights made my yard so foggy you couldnt see 4 ft. You will want to cut the cover into smaller pieces to be able to get it on/off easier.

 

[NyDon]

Thank you for the advice.