IDKpools
03-23-2011, 11:47 PM
I bought a home in November that has an in ground pool. I am new to this and I am a bit lost. I have just started the pool up for the year and I noticed a leek comming from the heater. I am going to have a tech come out to look at it but what I want to know is do NEED a pool heater? I have a spa and I would like to heat the spa but I live in TX (HOT)and I don't swim in the winter months so am I required to have a heater that can heat the pool and the spa even if I never use it to heat the pool?
CarlD
03-24-2011, 06:39 AM
I bought a home in November that has an in ground pool. I am new to this and I am a bit lost. I have just started the pool up for the year and I noticed a leek comming from the heater. I am going to have a tech come out to look at it but what I want to know is do NEED a pool heater? I have a spa and I would like to heat the spa but I live in TX (HOT)and I don't swim in the winter months so am I required to have a heater that can heat the pool and the spa even if I never use it to heat the pool?
Absolutely not! If your water is naturally warm enough to swim then the heater simply wastes money. However a spa needs to be heated, if you are going to use it. But that's two separate questions.
In your part of the world, using the pool only in warm weather, a solar cover should be enough to warm your water a bit and, more importantly, to keep it from cooling down on chilly nights and cooler days--it insulates. Personally, I've given up on the expensive covers--they last the same three years as the cheap ones and don't work much better.
As for heating the spa, well, I'll leave that to people who know about spas. But I don't believe you use the same heater for the spa as the pool (I could be wrong about that).
I live in NJ (where we've just had snow 3 nights in a row despite it being spring) and I can use my pool usually from early to mid-May and to mid/late September with nothing but solar heating. And, if it's a hot, sunny summer, I'm only using it in the early and late part of the season. People in my area frequently have heaters but most don't run them most of the season as the NG costs are very high.
An alternative to gas heaters are heat pumps, which have a bad rep for heating houses, but an excellent one for pools, generally costing far less to run than gas. I know that sounds odd but HPs get heat from the air, and when the air is in the 60's to 80's (swim temps) they are super-efficient. When the air drops into the 30's or 20's they get inefficient and have to rely on expensive resistance heating.