Why heat my pool?
You bought your pool for a number of reasons like family fun, exercise, entertaining and possibly even therapeutic reasons. However you´ve probably found that without heating your pool it´s often too cold to enjoy. Heating your pool will allow you to enjoy it all season, perhaps all year round, thereby increasing the return on your sizable investment.
Choosing the right heating system
There are three basic types of pool heating systems: Solar, Electric Heat Pump, and Gas (Natural or Butane/Propane). Deciding which system is the best match for you and your pool is determined by considering the factors below:
- Water temperature desired
• Swimming season desired
• Geographic location / climate
• Spending plans / project budget
• The size/shape of the pool, plus shading/wind factors
• Cost of operation
And here we are: Cost of operation! It is obvious, that solar heating is the most economic way of heating your pool, especially here on the Costa Blanca, with an average of 330 sunny days per year!
There are 2 different systems used worldwide – EPDM Solar Absorbers and Solar Panels with heat exchanger.
Easy to install, very cheap to run, more than 30 years used, 20 years life expectance, and worldwide millions of systems functioning – this is the EPDM Absorbers. Good enough to give 5 to 7 degrees more temperature, and this from the end of March until beginning of November.
Only the space necessary (min. 50% of the pool surface), or big distances from the pool house to the roof can disturb costumers. Some do not like the black color of the absorbers, there is also terracotta colored once on sale, good looking, about 15% less effective than the black once.
As the collectors are more effective (around 100% under the best circumstances – south orientated and inclined correctly), they are giving authentic results on half the space. They have a closed circuit with refrigerant, the water cannot flow directly through the collectors, a heat exchanger is a must!
And the cost of materials, installation and operation are more expensive. Often an installation of collectors is combined with the heating of hot water, or even as a boost for the central gas- or oil heating. A good compromise; use the solar collectors in spring and autumn for the pool, and save up to 70% in winter costs on your central heating
