new heat pump - best practice?

[tikigod19]

Hi all, I'm in the UK and have a 20x10 6000 galon outdoor pool. We recently did away with our 9kw electric heater and bought a Polytropic Master M heat pump.

We absolutely love it and it has transformed how often we use the pool. However now that summer is here in the UK whenever the outdoor temperature is set to be anywhere above 23 or 24 degrees celcius consistently for a week I will fire up the heat pump and leave it on a timer so it tops up the temperature every morning from 10am and usually it gains the 2 -4 degrees it's lost overnight by about 1 or 2pm.

Now sometimes I might decide the weather looks dodgy for maybe 4 or 5 days and if thats the case, I turn the thermostat right down (to around 21 degrees) so that it will not kick in at all. Obviously after those 4 or 5 days I then have to leave it on for a longer period of time (about 6-8 hours) to get from the lower temp up to swimable temp.

Is this the correct way to do things or should I be leaving it on and set to pool temp permanently throughout the summer? We get a lot of use out of the pool when the weather is right but obviously being in the UK this is hit or miss.

The convenience of not having to forward plan a swim by at least 24 hours would be lovely, but I don't want to go down that route if I'm going to be financially much worse off.

Any advice on this would be much appreciated!

 

[JoyfulNoise]

I would leave the heat pump set at the temperature you prefer to swim at. Maintaining heat is more efficient than allowing the water to cool and bringing up the heat all the time. However, in order to not crush you with a huge utility bill, keeping the pool covered when not in use will save you lots of heat loss. Do you have a pool bubble cover?

 

[tikigod19]

I would leave the heat pump set at the temperature you prefer to swim at. Maintaining heat is more efficient than allowing the water to cool and bringing up the heat all the time. However, in order to not crush you with a huge utility bill, keeping the pool covered when not in use will save you lots of heat loss. Do you have a pool bubble cover?

thanks for the reply!
We have an expensive thermal safety cover (aquamatic ez cover) which I've noticed on sunny days actually leads to the temperature increasing by a degree or so, so I definitely leave that on 100% of the time when not in use. It's more over night I was a bit concerned about. Obviously as the heat pump needs heat to work, will it use twice as much electricity to heat for 6 hours when the ambient temp is say, 18 degrees, compared to 3 hours of heating during the day when it's at 25 degrees

 

[Eers75]

If you want to save money buy your self a solar cover. When you see the weather is going to be bad cover up the pools so you save most of your heat. Then you could leave your pump turned on and it won't have to work very hard to maintain the temperature.

 

[tikigod19]

If you want to save money buy your self a solar cover. When you see the weather is going to be bad cover up the pools so you save most of your heat. Then you could leave your pump turned on and it won't have to work very hard to maintain the temperature.

the problem is we spent a lot of money on the safety cover and the guy told us there would be very little difference in heat retention between that and the solar cover that was already on the pool. We obviously bought the new cover for the safety benefits as we have young children.

I might contact the cover manufacturer and ask for some information on how its heat retention compares to a solar cover but can I trust their answer.. I'm not sure

 

[Eers75]

Sorry I was late with my reply. I started typing a response then had to help my wife. I didn't see your post about having a cover already. I would think your auto cover would be just as good as a solar. As for running the heat pump at night I'm not sure about that. But I think your correct it would have to run longer at night. My timers are set for 7am to 7pm. My heat pump is set at 80 and stays turned on all the time. I find it easier to maintain the temp rather than trie to raise it a lot.