Myths Surrounding Heating Up Your Pool ( what works and what don’t)…
When it comes to heating up and keeping your swimming pool water warm, there are a bunch of myths and half truths floating around…
Today, I’m going to take a quick moment to talk about what works and what doesn’t work to raise the temperature of your pool water.
Yesterday I had a very nice conversation with a friend who was looking for a way to keep her water warm and extend her swimming season by a month or two.
Easy and inexpensive task right?
That’s what she thought. She had been informed that by using a quality pool cover it would essentially “trap” the heat and store it for weeks and even elevate the temperature if it was warm outside for just a few hours a day.
Myth. There’s simply no truth in that. I won’t go into extreme detail on how water reacts to outside temperatures, but the important thing is that for a pool to lower or increase its temp by just 3-4% the outside temp must be substantially cooler/warmer for a lengthy period of time.
The higher the temp outside the water, combined with the lenght of the sustained temperature, the quicker the water will get warmer - the same principles apply (but going in the opposite direction) for water getting cooler.
Let’s chat about ways to heat your swimming pool (things that work well):
There are countless tarps, covers and apparatuses on the market that claim to increase the water temperature. The fact of the matter is that most of them work…at least moderately well.
But… at the end of the day, there’s really only a few items that really do actually heat up your swimming pool - like the Solar Sun Ring or the Solar Spa Ring for insance… and we have them for you in our ‘online store’
Swimming Pool Cover: A pool cover by itself WON’T elevate the temp of the water - it can “trap” it and allow the water to maintain its current temp for an extended period of time (depending on outside temps and quality of cover). A standard size pool (13,000-15,000 gallons) can lose about 5% of its water temp overnight. A VERY good cover can reduce that number by about half.
The most widely used type is the direct fired natural gas heater because of its low cost, reliability, ease of operation and the wide availability of natural gas. In areas where natural gas is not available, heater models can be furnished equipped to use LP gas or propane gas.
Oil-fired pool heaters are a good choice in areas where natural gas is unavailable but home heating oil is. Electric heaters are generally much less efficient and more costly to operate than natural gas heaters, unless the electricity is hydroelectrically generated. Using an electric heater can be VERY expensive.
Solar heating ranges from simple “passive” solar - the familiar pool cover that absorbs and transmits some of the sun’s energy to pool water (Solar Rings)- to “active” solar heating systems.
Used alone, the passive heating technique merely serves to help keep pool temperatures at existing levels by retaining natural solar heat and preventing its loss. It cannot add heat to build up water temperature beyond what the sun supplies. Active solar uses traditional pool motors to move water from the pool through a system of solar collector panels for heating by the sun. This increases the amount of solar heat added to the pool.
Making sense? Stick with me here…
So, why not just go solar since it’s “no cost energy”, right? Isn’t green and “environmentally friendly” and “IN” way to go these days?
Yes and no…I’m all about green and environmentally friendly too, but it must work! It needs to provide mutual benefit. An adequate solar pool heating system will cost substantially more initially than fuel-fired heaters. It can add 25% to 50% to the cost of building a pool and doing it after the pool is installed can quickly add up to $10K or even more…
Solar systems have definite limitations. To begin with, they require sufficient area in which to install large collector panels, usually on a roof or deck overhang near the pool.
Even in an area like southern California, the total solar collector area needs to be at least equal to 75% (100 % is better) of the pool surface area. This means that if you have a 20 x 40 pool you should have a 20 x 40 collector area available for best results.
You probably would have to increase the size of your electric pump - or provide a second pump - to deliver the pool water to the collector panels. And the pump would have to work almost continuously during most sunlight hours. This means your pump would be running during “peak load” periods when the utilities’ generating plants are often taxed to capacity - and when they charge more per kilowatt than during “off peak” periods.
Now, is ALL this really ‘going green’ after all?
Solar heating systems heat slowly - and not at all in cloudy, cool periods. Depending on the collector size and your location and climate, a solar system may not be able to warm the water to your desired temperature, even in the swimming season, except in the afternoon.
And there is just not enough solar energy to heat your pool for swimming in the winter, early spring or late fall - no matter how many hours you pump.
With anything, do a lot of research on the heating device that you choose to incorporate. These are costly investments, but that’s in the eye of the beholder as well. Your making an investment in your pool and yourself.
There’s no doubt that a good heater provides tremendous joy and benefits for years to come.
Make sure that you’re maintaining it properly - repairs can & will get very expensive so make sure that you’re running a proper maintenance regiment.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this heater “run down”…
Stay tuned over the next few days. I’ll be sharing important blogs that will discuss a few simple ways to save on energy and things you can do right now to reduce costs associated with heating your pool.
Here’s to you and yours,
Ken
