gas vs. electric heater?

[duraleigh]

Kaybinster,

The reason is that if it is warm enough to swim in an outside pool then the air is warm enough to provide plenty of heat for the pool. The efficiency is impacted by the outside temperature, but I don't think too many people swim when the outside temp is under 60 degrees.

Yeah, good point on only using the heat pump when it's efficient. I hadn't thought my post through very carefully.

Dave S.

[leejp]

It absolutely drives me crazy...

Here in upstate NY we have the house central AC going starting around mid-May and run it through mid September. But our pool usually doesn't get warm enough to swin in until late May early June. Late June through mid August is optimal for swimming and late August the pool begins to cool significantly.

Why can't I just dump the heat from my house from May-mid June and mid Aug-Sep to the Pool???!!!

If you live in Tampa you practically have the AC on all year long, no?

Many home geothermal heat pumps put heat to (or pull heat from) a body of water (pond/lake/ocean). Why can't pool water be used for this. Sure, one would have to make sure that the plumbing is done in a fashion so that the Chlorine in the pool does not corrode the condensor/evaporator but this just seems soooo simple!

[waterbear]

Many home geothermal heat pumps put heat to (or pull heat from) a body of water (pond/lake/ocean). Why can't pool water be used for this. Sure, one would have to make sure that the plumbing is done in a fashion so that the Chlorine in the pool does not corrode the condensor/evaporator but this just seems soooo simple!

A closed loop water cooled heat pump could probably work. Biggest problem is that your really would need a very big pool to handle the heat pulled from an average sized house and since the pool becomes the heat exchanger for the system imagine how hot that pool would become in the summer!

[Poconos]

Concerning using pool water to provide the heat sink for whole house A/C I don't think heating the pool water too much would be a problem. Just don't cover it at night if it gets too warm. There are a couple advantages to water to freon exchangers, as opposed to freon to air. Quieter...no big fan, motor, power consumption. Smaller size than the fan cooled assembly. All you need is a small donkey pump when the pool pump isn't running. Heat goes into something useful like heating the pool instead of the great outdoors. If I had central A/C for the house here in NE PA I'd definitely be using the pool water.
My nickels worth.
Al

[Brock]

I bought two 5000 BTU heat pumps. They were initially intended to be connected to a water heater and it would heat the water and blow out cold air. So I connected these two units in series and dropped the feed line and return in to our pool (they each have their own small circulation pump) and connected the air output to our furnace. In summer or as soon as we need cooling in the house I turn these on and they start to do their thing. In the middle of summer I can get by with running the central AC very little and the pool heater not at all. The cost of running the heat pumps are about the same as running AC alone, but instead of dumping the heat outside I am heating the pool. Since our pool is indoors and the surface is at a minimum of 6 feet below ground and deep end is about 25 feet below ground the pool needs heating year round, about the same all year actually.

[waterbear]

Concerning using pool water to provide the heat sink for whole house A/C I don't think heating the pool water too much would be a problem. Just don't cover it at night if it gets too warm.

Probably not in PA but here in FL the pool gets to 90 on it's own with the heater off and stays there. Might have to try the reverse cycle on my pool heat pump this summer to see if it cools it off!

[leejp]

Concerning using pool water to provide the heat sink for whole house A/C I don't think heating the pool water too much would be a problem. Just don't cover it at night if it gets too warm.
Al

I was thinking in May, June or Sep the AC would not be on all that much and one would have to bring the temp from ~60* or so to 80*+. July+Aug one would not be using the pool water for the heat pump.

[Poconos]

I guess I'm thinking more from an efficiency standpoint for house A/C as opposed to trying to extending the swimming season. Here in Northeast PA pools normally don't get too warm on their own unless we have a really hot spell. I'll take every BTU I can get to heat the pool.
Al

[Brock]

That was my thought as well. Since we always need heat for the pool it isn't an issue. I just use the heat pumps for cooling the house as necessary and any additional heat that ends up in the pool offsets the gas heater. I did find about 20 hours a day or more will increase my pool temp. Although it is pretty rare I needed that much cooling. In those cases the central AC would just pick up the slack. Again it is a win-win.

I actually run off peak rates so I typically run the heat pumps and pool pumps off peak unless it is really warm. Our modest solar array picks up about 1/2 the loading of I do run on peak.

[PoolDesignnet]

RLP an Aquacal H120 is much better suited for your pool. Also, before buying a heat pump, please have an electrician determine if your existing panel has enough power to run an additional load (40 to 50 amps).

I didn't know you could buy just a heat pump. Our pool is only 10,000 gallons. I'll have to look into it as well. I just know I don't only want solar b/c I want to heat more than 10-15 degrees. The thing down here is sometimes you'll have an 80 degree day in the winter, but then it'll drop to 50 degrees the next day so it keeps the pool from staying at a decent temp. Plus we have a lot of shade trees which doesn't help. Thanks for your input!