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Throughout most of the year, heat pumps for pools generate plenty of energy to keep your pool water nice and warm. However, when the weather gets colder, the heat pump has to work a lot harder to generate enough energy, and sometimes it cannot do it.

To understand why heat pumps for pools sometimes have a hard time getting your pool water to the desired temperature, you need to understand how they work. They take heat from the surrounding air, and exchange it into the water. This means that when the air is relatively warm, they have plenty of energy to work with, but in the winter, when the air is much colder, it is harder to gather enough energy this way.

This is why many people like to install a secondary heat pump, such as gas powered heater, which can make up the deficit . Because the heat pump is generating a fair amount of energy, their heating bills will still be much lower than using a gas powered heater on its own.

To get the most energy from your solar pool heaters, you will need to make sure that the panels are arranged at the right angle to catch the most sunlight. This angle varies based on how far north or south of the equator you are — this is measured by your latitude, in degrees. It should be optimised for the winter sunlight so that you can get the most heat throughout the year.

In the northern hemisphere, the panels should points south. In the southern hemisphere, the panels should point north.

It’s hard to think that a small thing like this will make a lot of difference, but it does. Taking these matters into consideration can seriously increase the efficiency of your solar pool heaters.

A propane gas pool heater has a number of advantages over other technologies. For one thing, it heats the pool very quickly, especially when compared to solar heating, which can take hours to produce the same effect. Whereas solar power heating is on all the time, the propane heater will only be turned on when needed.

As a fuel, propane burns relatively cleanly. It does not produce lots or relatively carbon rich deposits, like soot, but it still does produce exhaust gases like carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, so it’s not a 100% clean fuel — no fossil fuel is. However, it is a much cleaner alternative to some of the other fuels that you could use.

Another advantage which is often overlooked is that propane gas pool heaters can work all year round, whereas solar pool heaters and heat pumps are not able to produce enough heat during the coldest months of the year. Sometimes the gas powered pool heater will be used together with one of these other systems to provide the most economical heating.
photo credit: Kamal H.

photo credit: billjacobus1

There are three types of swimming pools heaters that are very popular, and there are several different types which are used more rarely. In this post I’m going to tell you what those three types of swimming pool heaters are.

The first type of swimming pool heater is the gas heater. This is the most popular type of heater because of its low installation costs, but it has the highest running cost of all. It is powered by gas, the most commonly used gas being propane. Running costs can be very high, with bills of over $3000 not unusual.

A much cheaper option, which costs more up front, is an electric powered pool heater. This type of pool heater is a sophisticated heat exchanger, much like an air conditioning system, which heats up your pool by exchanging heat with the air. This type of system can also be run in reverse to call your pool down. The price of running an electric pool heater is about half the price of running a gas pool heater. However, because of the higher installation cost, it usually takes about three years to pay for itself. From this point onwards, you are making savings.

The final type of swimming pool heaters that are very popular are solar powered heaters. These take energy from sunlight that falls on your property, usually on the roof, and then transfer it to the water of your swimming pool. Depending on the size of your pool, these can be quite inexpensive to install, but as they have very few moving parts they last for a long time. The heating costs are virtually nothing, because the sunlight is free.

The type of heating system you choose will be based on your requirements for year round heating, and other factors like the amount of sunlight you get in your location. Whichever one you do choose, I recommend you buy it from Aqua superstore. They offer very low prices with a guarantee to undercut any competition prices that you can find, so you will save the most money by shopping with them.

photo credit: abooth202

A solar heater for pools is often considered to be quite far-fetched, pipedream of the Eco Warriors. However, as I shall reveal in this post, it is quite a viable technology, and offers you a very economical alternative to using propane or other gas powered pool heaters.

Every day, huge amounts of energy are beamed onto your property from the sun . All of this solar power is capable of heating your pool several times over. Solar heating systems for pools tap into a small percentage of this energy and use it to heat your pool’s water.

On very sunny days, more energy than you need is provided. When this happens, the solar heater control diverts the unwanted heat away from your pool so that it does not overheat.

On cold days, a solar system may not provide enough energy to keep your pool perfectly warm. In this case you have two options, one is to have a secondary backup heater, which may be a gas powered system, or another option is to only use the pool during the hotter months.

Whichever set-up you choose, one thing is for certain. Using solar heaters for pools will allow you to cut your heating bills to virtually nothing, meaning that the price of installation can be offset in as few as three years, after which you will be able to enjoy extremely cheap hot water for your pool.

Electric pool heaters are designed to work on heat exchange principle. They use electrical power to suck heat out of the surrounding air and pump it into your pool water. This is much more economical than using electricity to generate heat through heating elements, as it is making use of the thermal energy is already present in the air.

These units have a much lower running costs than gas powered heaters, which offset their higher installation cost. For instance, in even fairly temperate regions, they are able to provide the same amount of heat as a gas heater for half the cost,which means that they will pay for themselves with in a period of about three years.

As you will be heating your pool for much longer than three years, been out money that you save using electric pool heaters is quite substantial.

Swimming pool heaters are necessary when you want to swim at night or swim during colder months. To some people, it’s only possible to make use of their swimming pool during the evenings. For instance in households where both partners are wage earners, an unheated pool could drop to uncomfortably low temperatures during the evening and night time. This is true even in hot climates such as in Florida.

In addition to helping to keep the pool water at a temperature that is comfortable, pool heaters can help to reduce the risk of damage to the plumbing that can be caused by freezing water expanding in pipes during winter months.

Whichever swimming pool heater you choose, the first thing you should do is buy and use a pool cover. These pool covers are designed to stop the loss from the pool surface, and can reduce your heating expenses by as much as half, as well as extending the swim season of your pool by as much as two months. When you consider how cheap pool covers are, I’m sure you’ll see why it would be crazy not to get one.

There are several different types of pool heaters for you to choose from, and you may want to choose a system which combines two different types. The simplest type of pool heater, and the one which is the cheapest to install, is the gas heater. These heaters use propane gas to generate heat and warm the pool. Advantages include fast heating times and low installation costs. However, they have the highest running cost of any swimming pool heater type, and it is not unusual to spend as much as $3000 a year on heating bills with this type of heater. Because these costs are prohibitively high, some people do not consider them a viable option. However, they are an effective supplemental system to a second heating system.

Another option to consider using in conjunction with a gas heater is the electric heat pump. This is an electricity powered system, which literally sucks the heat out of the air, using a process which is the the opposite of that which occurs in your refrigerator. The refridgerator sucks heat out of the food that is placed inside its pumps this heat out into the air. The pool heat pump takes heat from the air and compresses it. This heat is then passed directly into water which circulates through the system and goes back out to the pool. The running costs of this type of heater are far lower than a propane gas powered system, but the installation costs are considerably higher. It can take several years for the electric heat pump to make a saving when you consider the installation costs as well as running costs, but in the long run it is a lot cheaper than using a gas heater.

Another option, which is gaining in popularity, is solar pool heating. In this system, solar panels are used to collect solar energy from sunlight, and converted into heat which is directly circulated into the swimming pool. The solar panels are usually placed on the roof of your house, and are plumbed into the circulation system of your pool. These heaters are very environmentally friendly, and have zero running cost except for occasional maintenance, which may need to be performed. They run all year round, but obviously generate more heat during the hotter months than they do at colder times.

Solar heating is expensive to install, but pays for itself within 2 to 5 years. On its own, it may not be enough to keep your pool heated all year round, but when used in conjunction with a gas powered pool heater for the coldest months, it can provide you with a nicely warmed to call all year round.