Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Swimming Pool Heat Pumps

My wife and I enjoy our backyard swimming pool so much that, this year we decided to invest in a swimming pool heater. Although we live in southwest Florida our swimming season lasts about five months out of the year. Usually from the end of May to the end of October. Our pool is surrounded by a screened pool enclosure. Great for keeping bugs out but,even though we live in sunny Florida, the screened cage prevents the water from coming up to swimming temperature (80 degrees for us) until at least Memorial Day. Since we live in sunny Florida we decided to go with a swimming pool heat pump.

Swimming pool heat pumps in my opinion are the best and most efficient way to go if you live in a warm climate. The word on a heat pump is, they're not that great at heating when the temperature is below 40 degrees. We don't have many days below 40 degrees down here. That's why swimming pool heat pumps are the best option for the warm climates.

Being a little familiar with Hayward pool products I first looked into a Hayward pool heater. Hayward pool heaters are top notch but they're a little pricey. So, I decided to get an estimate from the guy that remarcited our pool. His own pool is heated with a Hayward pool heater but, his recommendation to us was a Summit swimming pool heat pump. Summit manufactures swimming pool heat pumps for any size pool and they carry a 5 year labor warranty, a 10 year compressor warranty, and a limited lifetime warranty on the heat exchanger. The heat exchanger is made from titanium which is resistant to the swimming pool chemicals.

I settled on the Summit 5T heat pump as the best for our pool,plus our guy got it for us at wholesale and agreed to do the installation at a very reasonable price. The model 5T heat pump puts out 115,000 BTUs and will heat a swimming pool up to 800 square feet. Our pool is 464 square feet so, the Summit 5T was an excellent choice.

Installation took about four hours including wiring. The wiring is the most expensive part of installing a pool heater. After getting everything hooked up the electrician walked me through the start up and settings. Took about 5 minutes. With the touchpad on the face of the heat pump you have settings to select pool or spa and the temp setting you want. The pool setting goes up to 95 degrees and the spa setting will go up to 105 degrees. Selecting the pool option I set the temperature at 92 degrees. This was on a Wednesday evening and the water temperature in my pool was 68 degrees. Way to cold for swimming. By Friday afternoon the water temperature was at 86 degrees and Friday night my wife and I were swimming. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention it was March 10th. Not even Spring yet and we're swimming. At night.

Our swimming season is now extended from March to November. A full 9 months that we can enjoy our swimming pool. The only other item I need to purchase will be a cover to prevent heat and water loss. A pool heater is a must have if you enjoy your swimming pool as much as we do and swimming pool heat pumps are the best and most efficient way to heat your pool especially if you live in a warm climate.

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