Pool Heater Advice

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R

Rblack1973

0
Jun 3, 2018
49
Muncie
Hello all
My family has been asking repeatedly for a pool heater. Being in Indiana we only have a limited swim season. I need some advice.

We just bought a solar cover last mth and our pool temp is generally between 75 and 80 degrees. We have direct sunlight on our pool all day with zero shade. Country folk. We do have natural gas but of course no gas line around our pool that we know of. My questions are these.

1. Is a pool heater necessary with our pool temps being as they are now? No idea what average temps are for pools.
2. Which heaters are the best? Gas or electric? Trying to avoid huge bills.

Any suggestions would be great. Thanks
 
Whether it is necessary or not depends on your desires. Some like to swim in 75 degree water and others need it above 90 :D
A heater would certainly allow you to extend the swim season though. The cover should help a lot as well.

Adding solar heating is an option that has a large upfront cost, but then heating is "free". But, it will not add a lot of heat quickly.
If you want to add a lot of heat quickly, then I think gas would likely be your cheapest option.
Raypak heaters seems to be the most recommended on the forum.
 
Our last pool had a custom NG heater. It worked for our scenario. It was a Trinity water boiler that heated the house, home water, and had a SS heat exchanger that we pumper pool water through. It was fast. 90,000 liter / 20,000 gal from 56° to
90° in 30 hours.
 
I think it depends on how you intend to use the pool in the extended season. If going in everyday, then maintaining temperature with a heat pump might be a better option. If you just want to hear it 5-10 degrees for the weekend, a natural gas would probably be better.

It costs me about $4 per hour to run a 400k Btu heater in New Jersey and I can raise my pool temperature about 1 degree per hour.
 
Ok thanks for the responses. Yes we swim in it daily or the kids do at least but with the overnight temps getting low now the pool is obviously getting cooler. The solar cover has helped a lot. We were only getting about 72 degrees maintained without it and the saving of chemicals is amazing. I guess it will really come down to upfront cost. Either run a gas line or pay the high elec. This is our first year so I will probably see how long we do make it in the season for swimming and go from there. Thanks again.
 
If you have Natgas service to your home, and you can find a path to run a service line to an area near your pool equipment pad, that’s the way to go.

A few years back I helped my neighbor get bids and they had to re-run a dead service branch to pool heater gas line (3/4”), and had to sawcut their concrete driveway and run about 100 feet to their heater and it was still only about $800. Inexpensive in my book.

If you only need to dig a trench, and not disturb anything but dirt, the material cost and labor are Not really expensive—and with a little handyman attitude you can DIY the pipe laying part.

A 400k Btu Raypak heater might set you back $1900+ install. Get enough line and diameter pipe to handle a 400k btu unit would be my desire. When you want to Heat up the pool you can, and in shoulder months you can extend the pool season. We do this and the gas bill jumps to about $60-80/month. Many times your gas company can give recommendations.

Had a solar heater at an old house and it got installed due to tax incentive, but was expensive still but worked well. It ate up lots of roof space and spent many an afternoon plugging leaks on it until eventually I solely relied on gas.
 
sktn77a said:
While heat pumps are getting more and more efficient (COP of 3-5), they are expensive to install and expensive to run. In most areas, gas prices vs electric prices favor the nartural gas option.
Click to expand...

Ours has a COP of 16. Not at all expensive to run in the scheme of things. Of course it does all depend on your gas cost and availability as to which option would best suit. We don’t have natural gas lines in our suburb.
 

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Some inverter heatpumps can exceed a COP of 6.0 at high ambient temperatures (and low ambient humidities) but this is news to me also. riley00dog has a brand new, (what appears to be money-no-object) pool so he may know something we don't!

;)

Edit: Just saw your last post. I'm guessing the real life COP is in the 6-8 region (per their second set of specs). I'd be hard pressed to see any reliable data showing a COP of 16!

But in any event, I'm sure its working great with your new pool and hope you are enjoying it!
 
sktn77a said:
Some inverter heatpumps can exceed a COP of 6.0 at high ambient temperatures (and low ambient humidities) but this is news to me also. riley00dog has a brand new, (what appears to be money-no-object) pool so he may know something we don't!

;)

Edit: Just saw your last post. I'm guessing the real life COP is in the 6-8 region (per their second set of specs). I'd be hard pressed to see any reliable data showing a COP of 16!

But in any event, I'm sure its working great with your new pool and hope you are enjoying it!
Click to expand...

Possibly. I don’t really mind either way. It’s costing what they predicted it would cost to run per year. It is negligible really since it means we can swim 12 months of the year (we meaning my boys). There was about 2 -3 weeks over the middle of winter they only swam maybe once but otherwise they have regularly since we turned it on in late May.

The only thing I’m not happy with is the single speed boost pump. It’s so noisy. I was talking to the pb plumber about switching it out and he said there’s not many options. Don’t really believe that and will need to look into it further. The heat pump unit itself is about what I expected noise wise. Just sounds like a modern air con unit. It’s acceptable.
 
sktn77a said:
Some inverter heatpumps can exceed a COP of 6.0 at high ambient temperatures (and low ambient humidities) but this is news to me also. riley00dog has a brand new, (what appears to be money-no-object) pool so he may know something we don't!

;)
Click to expand...

We have upgraded nothing in this pool with the exception of the pool pump two speed to variable and glass fencing (so our small pool 1.5m from our house does not look like a jail). Plus added a slide (included as free but we upgraded to the bigger model) and heat pump. By the way the heat pump was around $4,500 fully installed with boost pump and cover which I don’t think was ridiculous and was comparable in pricing to other heat pumps that receive terrible customer reviews. Interior paving tile equipment robot and everything else was included in the contract as standard. Money absolutely is an object to us and we have worked hard to pay for this pool. By the way - I’m a she not a he!
 
riley00dog said:
Ours is the IPH45.

https://www.poolheating.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/AES-Inverter-Plus-Heat-Pumps-Brochure.pdf
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. The cop=16 is different conditions than normally quoted so apples and oranges but a very nice unit. State of the art being fully modulated like that. It'll outperform single and two stage designs and even other modulating ones with more primitive technology.

Someday I'll add heater (natural gas is cheaper for me) but constant rain more than temperature ends our season so I always procrastinate.
 
Poolzzz said:
Thanks for the info. The cop=16 is different conditions than normally quoted so apples and oranges but a very nice unit. State of the art being fully modulated like that. It'll outperform single and two stage designs and even other modulating ones with more primitive technology.

Someday I'll add heater (natural gas is cheaper for me) but constant rain more than temperature ends our season so I always procrastinate.
Click to expand...

Possibly different conditions quoted due to us being in different countries. For us the conditions of the two cops listed are pretty much our summer/winter. Other systems here use the same temp conditions and offer a cop of around 4/2. Real world operations might not be what’s quoted but yes we’re very happy with the system so far.

If you have the option of natural gas then that would be the way to go.
 
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