Minnesota: To Heat or Not To Heat

Kelly Gordon · Jun 8, 2018

Hi all:

Our 20-year-old Raypack has given up the ghost. It was a workhorse, but the elements finally caught up to it. The cost to replace is about $2300.

I'm wondering how many Northerners here say a heater is a necessity and how many go without. Our pool is fairly large and deep. Water temp today is around 68 today, even after being in the sun. I don't know if it's reasonable to expect it to get warmer without help. And the kids won't really swim if the water is below 80, unless it's really hot day. Any thoughts?

Kelly

GOONiE · Jun 8, 2018

Heater help extend our swimming season.

blakeusa · Jun 8, 2018

If it gets the kids outside and your old one lasted 20 years it sounds like a good investment.

How about a solar cover.. as most of your heat is lost at night via evaporation.

br1ght · Aug 12, 2018

We have 20K gal 28’ ag outside of International Falls. We have 100K BTU NG heater (which will be replaced next spring with a ~200K)... we wouldn’t get much more than 2 months use out of it without the heater... we get ~31/2 months depending on the year and I expect with the upgrade next year another 2 weeks on each end of seasons. I expect if we weren’t in such a windy area we’d get better service without a heater but we are in a quite windy area even with a 6’6” solid wall fence around it...

An added benefit of the larger heater will be I can let the temp droop when we aren’t using it for a few days and still bring it back in few hours to a day...

bmoreswim · Aug 12, 2018

I’d have a heater in MN for sure. Your kids sound intelligent.

ajw22 · Aug 12, 2018

Depends how much Viking blood line you have in you to swim in a pool below 70 in the summer. There would be no point in having a pool if I could not get the temp up on warm summer days. A 40,000 gallon pool has too much thermal mass for the sun, even on a hot day, to raise the temperature much in the Northern climate. A heater can get the water to the ambient temperature and then it stays there and you have little heat loss during the day.

Geebot · Aug 13, 2018

We're in Chicago and start heating in May. Bad enough to have limited seasonal use of the pool but then further limiting use to days when the water is tolerable cuts a 5-month season down to less than 3. Heat it.

thegreenblade · Aug 13, 2018

I get 6 months in Chicago. I would get a way bigger heater for that size pool.

mariane · Aug 13, 2018

Yes, heater!
We start opening in mid May, heating it as soon as the outdoor temps are not too cold to go outside, and cont. to heat till mid Sept. when the outdoor temps start getting low. We don't close the pool till late October anyway while waiting for the water temps to get below 60.

Although last year I swam in October when the outside temps hit the 80's and I had the heater going.