Natural gas heater or a heatpump??

[fjava]

Hello,
Can anybody help me decide on a pool heater to buy.. I'm having a new pool (15x28 rectangle 7' deep) installed soon and I cant decide on a natural gas heater or a heatpump. I'm in NJ...and thinking about the "Heat Siphon DX 5.0" or the "Teledyne Laars Jandy Hi-E2".
I'm not worried about the cost...
Thanks for any help,
Tom

[Sean-NJ]

Look at this thread
http://www.poolforum.com/pf2/showthread.php?t=4554

[thepoolman1]

If money is not an obstacle, go with the Hi-E. Fast heat and 90+% efficiency. A hard-to-beat combination. Be sure to install or have it installed exactly as instructed, especially with regard to gas-line sizing and the condensate line. Condensation is very corrosive (low pH) and must be dealt with if it will come in contact with metal or even concrete. I once saw a customer's A/C condensation eat through 3" of concrete in 2 years.

Heat pumps are good for long-term heating where you don't need to heat a body of water very quickly, say a spa in 15 - 20 minutes or less.

[fjava]

Thanks thepoolman1... Would you know what the Hi-E could cost to run a month...my PB told me $80-$100.00... He wants me to buy a heat pump from him.
Thanks,
Tom

[myLABSpool]

I am also looking for any advice on heater selection...
I am contemplating natural gas vs. heat pump on our inground pool. The pool is not installed yet, but should be by early Sept 2006. I'm strongly leaning toward the Natural Gas, but a heat pump sounds interesting since we have very cheap municipal electric where I live western NY state.

The pool is an 18x36 inground (Sierra shape) with a 95' perimeter, 8' deep end (no spa) and I’m installing a bottom return line in the floor of the deep end as I’m told this helps provide more efficient heating. I will have FULL sun on the water from virtually sun up to sun down and will use a solar cover at night and when the pool is not in use. Since I have full sun and a solar cover, I think that heating would only be required in the spring and fall and just occasional maintenance mid summer if we had a stretch of cool weather resulting in heat loss. We like our water between 82-84 degrees. With that said, I would think that my heating use would be when I need to move the temp up 5 or 10 degrees quickly, which makes me think natural gas is the better option.

Anybody have experience similar to mine and any thoughts on this?

Thanks

[MarkC]

When you said money is no concern were you referring to the initial cost of the unit or the cost to run the unit over time. If you meant the initial cost is not important I would say go with the heat pump unless you want to open very early in the spring and stay open past the beginning of October. I have one in PA and it works great. Only downside is I usually have to time my initial heating with a warm spell in the spring as it takes quite a few days to get the water temp up into the mid to high seventies. Heat pump output drops off quite a bit with temps below 65 degrees. Your use of a solar cover and full sun will help a lot.

[RavenNS]

Heat Pumps can be purchased that actually will run bellow the freeezing temperature! ( -5C or 23F)

Heat pumps are so much more efficient that any other heating method ( except environmental like solar of course).

Check the internet for Heat pump vs gas heaters
there is tons of info on comparing the two.
( I saw a gov't study that showed that a heat pump could pay for itself in savings over a three seasons period compared to other methods... again, not including solar)

True, a heat pump isn't as fast as gas, but how fast do you need it to be?

I turned my summit heat pump ( 115000 btu) on at a water temp of about 54F... the air temp did not go above 65F ( most of the time way less), rained every night, didn't have a cover on my pool, & in less then a week the 140000L ( 37K gallon?) pool was 90F

It maintains heat wonderfully as well

To me, it isn't even a question:
If you want efficiency, you go with a heat pump

next question, go with a titanium copeland scroll ?.... (lol)

[cleancloths]

I'm in Morris County, NJ and have had a heat pump for 8 years - you have to be crazy to go with gas!

[Poolsean]

RavenNS,

Titanium for sure! Did you know that there are major differences in titanium heat exchangers though?
First, Titanium is a poor conductor of heat. That's why it took many years for the Heat Pump Industry to endorse titanium over cupric-nickle.

Second, the design of the titanium heat exchanger, the vessel that allows the exchange of heat from the super heated freon filled titanium tubes to the water, makes a big difference in how efficiently the heat is transfered to the water. A simple coil of titanium in an open vessel transfers less heat than a controlled flow of water over the titanium coil in a baffled vessel.
Think of this in terms of a solar heater. If you had a sealed bucket on your roof in which water was passed through it, would you collect more or less heat than an equivalent volume solar panel? The transfer of heat would be much less in the bucket because the many solar tubes, in which the main headers diffuse the water through, will transfer more heat to the water, like the baffled flow scheme of a higher efficiency heat exchanger system.

Third, chemically impervious to attack!

[bbb]

I have a heat siphon with the titanium heat exchanger and the scroll - it's the second year now and it works well and isn't a killer on my electric bill. I bought it specifically because it is cheaper to operate than a natural gas heater. It will heat more slowly than a gas heater, though, but I will take the tradeoff with lower operating costs any day. You can maintain heat even better (and save money) by heating in conjunction with using a solar cover.