How Much Does It Cost To Heat A Pool?

From www.swimmingpoo... Steve talks about how much is the natural gas and electricity costs to heat a swimming pool from cold to warm. In this case a 16' x 36' pool being heated from 56 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

[@daveborchard2019]

We live in the Tampa Bay area where the temperatures don't drop below 50 degrees most of the year. Without heat, the pool is 62 in the middle of the winter months and 91 degrees the middle of the summer months. The pool is about 15,000 gallons. I've heard that the monthly cost to heat a pool to 84 degrees is about $150 a month using an electric heat pump, or $500 a month heating with natural gas. The heat pump takes twice as long to heat as natural gas heater. Some heat pumps have a chiller option, where the heat pump can cool the water, which is a useful feature in Florida, when the pool water temperatures are too hot. I've heard that the most practical solution is to use an electric heat pump with a chiller option for the pool and a natural gas heater for the spa, since the volume of water for the spa is about 500 gallons, and the natural gas heater heats the spa a double the speed compared to heating with a heat pump.

[@jdlovesize]

Solid explanation of the rate of rise formula! Crazy amount of energy needed to heat a swimming pool. In the U.S., even in areas of the country where natural gas is cheap @ $1/therm this would cost $47.00! And gas is up over $2 in plenty of states.

[@QuaabQueb]

Now THIS is an informative video. I like the new podcast studio. I look forward to future topics

[@Swimmingpoolsteve]

Thank you! Pretty excited to have the new recording setup.

[@stevevalk8898]

Live in San Diego. Have 18x48 above ground intex. Built two 4x4 solar boxes with 200 feet of black water hoes each. Panted flat black and used an old glass house window on one of them and the other two old glass shower doors on top of the other. Got it running or pumping through my sand filter intex. Got a PVC 3 way valve to switch from pool to heaters. Mid April I was in it. I can get the water temp up from 65 to 85 in 3 or 4 days. I also have a solar cover that stays on it when not in use. last year I had the temp up to 91 on a warm hot sunny day. It works great

[@Swimmingpoolsteve]

Without running the actual numbers I am sure you got a million free BTU's from the sun, which I think is good by any scale.

[@nickyalousakis3851]

san diego.... lucky duck.... i am in toronto canada - same weather as chicago. we have a very short pool season here, so ppl up north are eager to heat up their pools as quick as possible. san diego..... you've got all the time in the world.

[@JuiceEasy]

On this subject this is by far the best video to reference! Thanks for sharing your knowledge!!!!

[@andrewtschesnok5582]

Not sure where you got the 0.1218 price.. but in California the price of 4.7m BTU's = 48 Therms = $96. US Nationally (in 2020) around $60. And that may just be the gas and not delivery charges, etc. You are also not accounting for the pool being cooled while you are heating it. Rule of thumb is that you pay $100 a day to keep a pool warm on a cold day... every day. Love your videos.. but $16 is not a helpful number.

[@brianwells1398]

This is nuts then. I built my pool this year. I live in Las Vegas. My pool is 28x12 5 ft deep. My gas bill went up like $300 in the last month and I only heated it up like 4-5X.

[@Swimmingpoolsteve]

You are not calculating losses. Heating a pool is like heating your house when there is no roof on the house. It will heat up, but you lose a good amount of that heat right away.

[@jimnicholson7634]

That, Sir was mind boggling.Thank you

[@dinotopher770]

that was a cogent and detailed explanation.

[@Swimmingpoolsteve]

cheers

[@znakCNC]

how about furnace efficiency of 80%?

[@sdixon305]

I’m shocked that the cost is so low. Anyone else? I guess I’ve only heard nightmare stories about people with electric heaters and $2,000 electric bills from a week of heating.

[@Swimmingpoolsteve]

The losses in an open air pool system are huge. Especially with cold ambient air when you are trying to hold the water temp higher than the surrounding air. You spend more on losses than actual heating costs by far with an example like this. You can absolutely burn thousands of dollars of natural gas or propane by running your pool heater too much (too high of temp) when the pool is uncovered and the ambient temps are cold. Your billing cycle for gas is one to two months and this means you can rack up a ton of expenses before you notice.

[@enmodo]

Plus "electric heater" may mean they are literally using an immersion heater arrangement. An electric heat pump is around 6x as efficient so long as outdoor temps are favorable.

[@TheBrokerLife]

Fantastic content ! Thank you !

[@stinksterrekerinski4450]

I want to know a short answer for commercially available products with an average size pool.

[@bobbellhouse799]

Great video, Steve. I watch them all. Thank you so much for sharing your expertise. With ragrad to the "Pool Heating Cost calculator", shouldn't there be a factor for heater efficiency?

[@Swimmingpoolsteve]

Yes, and along those lines there should also be a calculation for energy losses as the pool loses heat, however that would be a much more difficult number to quantify. For heaters, just apply your output BTU as the denominator in that equation, not the input BTU's

[@bobbellhouse799]

@@Swimmingpoolsteve Thanks!

[@GreasyCashier]

doing these calculations with propane at 65 cents a litre it works out to 128.19. I wonder if running a heat pump pool heater would be more cost effective in Ontario

[@mjordan421]

Two questions. How would I figure cost for a 61,000btu heat pump (rayvak 65-I) and b) can you do this and the raypak in u.s./imperial numbers? Gas is $0.87/therm, electricity is $0.075/kWh.

[@yaaahmed]

I looked at your video. You are very informative. I am in the process of building a pool. Not sure which heater to use? Electric or gas? Based on what you are saying in the case of the swimming pool gas is more expensive. I live in California. Building 25x50. Depth varies but the deepest is 8 and the shallow is 18 inches. Appreciate your help.

[@obeliskgroup5714]

Electric heating is much much more expensive than gas heating. I'm not sure if there are electric heaters for pools tho

[@TheDandy1122]

So how much will it cost heat it up if I build a 15x25 pool with the shallow being 3’5 and the deep being 6’. I’m in California which is not to cold. I will have a 400 btu unit. Maybe 10 degrees

[@jv82-r7t]

I have the same size pool and would like to know the answer too

[@stevemize445]

Steve, the math just doesn't seem to work for me when I use your formula I come up with $1.55 Pool size is 15.5'x35'x avg.5' deep fiberglass pool and natural gas in Kansas city Missouri area is $12.50 per thousand cubic meters. Please help me with this info

[@Swimmingpoolsteve]

Your numbers are very close to what you see in this video. Almost the same since your pool is pretty much the same size as the one I used in the example. The main difference will be how much you want to heat your pool. This example looks at a 24 degree rise in water temp which would pretty much only happen at the very start of the swimming season in the spring. Your question comes in late summer which means you will be likely calculating a mid season temp spread closer to 5 degrees or 10 at most. I think this is why your final total appears smaller. But it is important to remember that this is not factoring losses to the pool, only hard costs for a single initial lift in water temp. In a real world setting there are even more factors to consider from losses. In short, using a cover of any kind on your pool can reduce losses from conduction, radiation, convection and evaporation by as much as 95% which is, as you can see, an absolutely huge potential for heat energy savings. Cheers.

[@stevemize445]

@@Swimmingpoolsteve Thanks after watching yours and other videos i think i'm going with a heat pump and an auto cover.Your videos are very very help full. Thanks Again

[@sir-hesbonbmasibo6322]

Good information 👍

[@ellaluna5514]

Depends!

[@znakCNC]

also would be nice to say how many hours it would take to heat it up, also heat loss factor is approximately how many percent an hour or day?

[@thehouse247]

Do you have a video explaining the 7.5 ?

[@Swimmingpoolsteve]

One cubic foot of water contains 7.48 gallons of water. So first we calculated cubit footage of the pool, then multiplied this by 7.5 to determine how many gallons in the entire pool.

[@bang1082]

Whats the 8.3 represent in the formula, lbs per gallon?

[@chrismaxny4066]

The real cost is the electric the pump uses! We have a Hayward 1.5 HP pump which used 955 Kwh in July running 24/7 or about 30Kwh per day. At our electric rate for the month it cost $227.67/ per day $7.34. Our pool is 20 x 40 with a deep end and has 30,000 gallons of water. Never used the heat pump as we let the sun do the work.

[@markrigneymd6570]

I did not see your entire explanation but did you account for % efficiency of heater plus loss of heat to pool itself and ground temp plus with w/o cover and air temp and wind speed. Many variables left out and very difficult to account for but I would bet my pool that it will cost 5x what you estimated to raise a 24k gallon pool 25 or 30 degrees. $16 or $17 is frankly silly!

[@Swimmingpoolsteve]

Using a solar blanket reduces thermal losses from evaporation, radiation and convection by 95% with remaining losses from conduction going through the walls and floor accounting for 5% of thermal losses. So if you use a solar blanket then the numbers will be close to this value because the losses are almost eliminated with the cover on. I also accounted for heater efficiency by telling you to use the output BTU from your heater, not your input BTU rating. Thanks for your comment.

[@conniebueche3989]

I’m sure if you have enough people passing gas in the pool that will help raise the temp...now THAT’S silly! There are so many variables to look at, this video gave a good estimate based solely on numbers!

[@networth00]

I'm guessing the $16 was just getting the water heated, not maintaining that temperature.

[@rogersteinbach]

Very silly, I just ran my heater for 5 days 20k gallons raised water 30° . 400k btu took 12 hrs to reach temp and held 5 days. Just got my gas bill. $430.00 for pool portion. Total $552.00

[@enmodo]

Just a wild ass guess but while they are heating it half that energy goes up into the air unless they have it covered like Steve suggested. In the shoulder season they would be crazy not to unless they have money to burn. This is the reason we just have a hot tub in the winter.

[@anthonyroberts8597]

Steve can i close my pool using a Solar blanket and a winter blanket?

[@PenguinKnightilia]

I did a class in ICF last year and they said you can build a pool out of ICF and heated during the winter. What do you think, is there any sense adding r28 to the walls and the floor. Can icf even hold pressure from both sides, would it make sense that the plaster might also have hairline cracks

[@jdlovesize]

Not necessary. Once the ground around a pool warms up there are very little conductive heat loss. Maybe 5% of the total heat loss. Most of the heat loss of a swimming pool is through evaporation, convection, and radiation.

[@nicholasmaione5694]

So a heater of 100,000 btu would take 2 days to heat so that’s $8/day to heat the water. Or $240/month. That’s pretty reasonable if you ask me considering how much water that is.

[@whynot5716]

works for me!

[@talktidy7523]

I tuned in for a vdeo on swimming pools & received a lesson on hard sums instead.

[@forkehausfalconry]

Can I get a 24*40 inground pool with an 8' deep end into the mid to high 80's with a solar cover only?

[@Swimmingpoolsteve]

Not anywhere near to enough information. Do you live in Arizona? Alaska? Realistically the answer is probably no. 80 yes, 83 or 84 even. More than that you need to live somewhere super warm like the southern USA. There cooling your pool is more of a concern

[@forkehausfalconry]

​@@Swimmingpoolsteve Thank you for the fast response. We live in Nebraska where its pretty hott in the summer. We had a 48" above ground pool and the solar cover did a great job so much so that we would not need for several weeks at all. I am worried however with a deep end I may not be able to get it all the way up into the mid to higher 80's?

[@Swimmingpoolsteve]

Definitely an inground pool will be cooler and harder to heat than an above ground pool which is exposed to hot air on all sides.

[@dennisskinner2339]

Steve, have you evaluated the Pentair Hybrid ETI pool heater? Do you have an opinion on this unit?

[@Swimmingpoolsteve]

Not so much an evaluation other than the moment I saw it at a trade show I knew that was the one I would be selling if I were still out building high end pools. The only drawback is initial cost. It really is a best-of-both-worlds kind of product in my opinion.

[@stevemize445]

Same question as last time but my gas numbers were horribly wrong. I would like to maintain on a thermostat. I have a 16'x35'x4' inground fiberglass saltwater pool with an autocover I am looking at a 150k natural gas heater. Current gas prices are $18.95 per thousand cubic feet . What would the cost be to raise temp say 5 degrees just to keep at say 87? The cover should retain most of the heat and slow water cooling. I just don't see any videos on the ability of the cover to help hold in the heat. i would like to start my season a little earlier and extend a little more say 30 days each side. My pool is currently 71 degrees and full sun for about 6 hours a day.

[@maddogg63]

per day? how much per month?? Thanks steve!

[@Towelie4200]

He said couple days

[@miltonpacheco1672]

Can a 18kw 240v electric heater heat a 10,000 gallon pool?

[@glenngulia5409]

You missed one element of cost. The cost of constantly repairing your Hayward heater because Hayward does not take pride in the quality of the product they sell.

[@ConchienceClothing]

🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@WillLeingang]

Came for “less than $20” left with a math lesson 😂

[@bkpalos]

That sounds incredibly cheap

[@BobVlogs408]

Get electric pool heater, and solar. Won't cost you a penny.

[@raiders3417]

California electricity cost is 27 cents per kwh for 3 days were looking at 30-40$ lol

[@Swimmingpoolsteve]

This video is talking about a gas heater, not an electric heat pump. The electrical draw for a gas heater is almost zero so even though you pay almost thirty cents per kwh the heater only uses a small amount of electricity to operate the digital circuitry so the total cost for three days is very low. $30 to $40 is what a 3hp motor would use in two to three days. A gas heater would be nowhere near that amount of electricity.

[@luizcisneros3690]

@@Swimmingpoolsteve Hi Steve and thanks. Do you have a similar calculation done on an electric heater?

[@andrewstafford-jones4291]

UK Electricity is $0.45 per kWh

[@lfdvidinc]

It’s one hundred degrees outside and customer out of propane and call emergency line🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 ,what a waste of money and human life