Polar plunge party or heat my pool?

[miltonmom]

Hi all,
Looks like we are maybe a week to two away from our pool being completed and swimming! Its been a long wait like everyone else and we would love to swim just a little before it gets too cold. We have a 32x18pool and a 7x9 spa. If anyone from the Atlanta area could chime in on how much it costs to heat their pool in the shoulder season with days in the 70s and mostly sunny. I see some people post about solar blankets and I will investigate that.
We have a 400,000 BTU gas heater.
Many thanks for any responses.

 

[Aquaman7]

If you go with the polar plunge, it’ll be fun for the first 15 minutes then the cold settles in. Fire up the heater and people will enjoy the pool longer.

 

[Mdragger88]

It may be worth it to heat the pool some for the inaugural “pool warming” party.

Get the hot tub bubbly warm - so folks can warm up the rest of the way quickly.
I don’t have a heater but i do have a hot tub & I just go back & forth in the shoulder seasons.
Btw - kids won’t care either way- they’ll swim till they’re blue

 

[Kellyp]

After a surprise $700.00 addition to the gas bill the first September I had a pool, I now only heat when I know I am going to be swimming the next day. I heat it day before and day of. We may swim once or twice a week this time of year, so it maybe $200.00 in additional gas charges. We think its worth it.

 

[ajw22]

Note…

Why no heater use for first 30 days? With new plaster there is a lot of plaster dust in the water and the pH is usually very high. When you heat water the potential for scale formation in the heater increases significantly. The actual timeframe for waiting to use the heater has no real merit. As long as the plaster dust is under control and the pH is in range there is no reason not to use it. Your risk of rushing to use the heater is scale clogging up the heater coil.

 

[miltonmom]

Note…

Why no heater use for first 30 days? With new plaster there is a lot of plaster dust in the water and the pH is usually very high. When you heat water the potential for scale formation in the heater increases significantly. The actual timeframe for waiting to use the heater has no real merit. As long as the plaster dust is under control and the pH is in range there is no reason not to use it. Your risk of rushing to use the heater is scale clogging up the heater coil.

Yikes! Does that apply to the spa as well?

 

[ajw22]

Yikes! Does that apply to the spa as well?

Yes

 

[brimorga]

Note…

Why no heater use for first 30 days? With new plaster there is a lot of plaster dust in the water and the pH is usually very high. When you heat water the potential for scale formation in the heater increases significantly. The actual timeframe for waiting to use the heater has no real merit. As long as the plaster dust is under control and the pH is in range there is no reason not to use it. Your risk of rushing to use the heater is scale clogging up the heater coil.

Depressing news!! Does this also apply to pebble pools? (Praying it does not!)

 

[ajw22]

Depressing news!! Does this also apply to pebble pools? (Praying it does not!)

Yes.

A pebble pool is a plaster pool. All the pebbles are held together by plaster.

 

[Jerz]

Note…

Why no heater use for first 30 days? With new plaster there is a lot of plaster dust in the water and the pH is usually very high. When you heat water the potential for scale formation in the heater increases significantly. The actual timeframe for waiting to use the heater has no real merit. As long as the plaster dust is under control and the pH is in range there is no reason not to use it. Your risk of rushing to use the heater is scale clogging up the heater coil.

My pool builder told me that he's been building pools 35 years and his father was a pool builder and he's never seen issues with using the heater the first 30 days. He told me that when he's finished with mine I could use the heater right away...

 

[Nikilyn]

We use a solar blanket and get some good warmth out of it. We just put it on this afternoon because it’s dropping to the low 80s and that is a no go for me.

 

[jimmythegreek]

They dont tell you cause their phone will ring sooner on a heater replacement. It's a well known fact In the industry amd some heaters spec it in their manual

 

[Cena_sea]

I don’t know if this applies to solar heater because the actual heater doesn’t turn on? We enabled solar heat right away and almost exclusively used for pool and spa. It was so nice.

 

[miltonmom]

They dont tell you cause their phone will ring sooner on a heater replacement. It's a well known fact In the industry amd some heaters spec it in their manual

First we heard of the 30 days was on here and then when I got the PebbleTec confirmation date it was in the instructions. So sad, we missed the summer (thought we would have been swimming) and was looking forward to the shoulder season but I guess we will miss that as well. Oh well, first world problems, right? Excited for PebbleSheen tomorrow! Thanks for your input!

 

[jimmythegreek]

Solar is fine to use at anytime