Real Estate Innovation

Bringing Warmth Into Winter: Heat Pumps For Swimming Pools

Without question, there are few pools you’re likely to find to be at a good swimming temperature year-round. While a chilly dip can be fun once in a while, it’s still preferable to be able to warm up your pool at will. Kids love a warm pool - most of them will never want to leave. You’ll find that, with the addition of a swimming pool heat pump to your pool, you will not only be increasing the value of your home, but making space for a lot of family fun and memories.

Now, to be clear - swimming pool heat pumps don’t make their own heat. Rather, they use electricity to catch heat and shift it from one place to another. The swimming pool’s water is circulated through the pump, and as it does so the heat pump’s fan draws in outside air, sucking it onto an evaporator coil, which holds a quantity of liquid refrigerant. This refrigerant substance becomes a warm gas when it absorbs the air, passing through a compressor and growing hotter as it’s squeezed more tightly in its container.

It then passes through a condenser, where the gas’s heat is transmitted from it’s pipe housing into the water. Being cooled by the surrounding water, the gas returns to liquid form, and runs back to the evaporator coil so that the process can repeat itself. The heated water goes back into the pool, disperses through it and so, logically, increases the net temperature of the pool.

Now what all this science winds up meaning to you is that while a swimming pool heat pump might cost a bit more to install when you initially buy it, it’s less likely to be affected by shifts in the weather or the absence of sunlight than solar-paneling solutions, and will be more energy efficient than the majority of heating pump systems out there - the simple fact is that, since they’ve been around for so much longer than other forms of inground pool heater technology, they’ve matured in their design and are now better thought out and put together.

Of course, the way that I’ve described heat pumps for swimming pools above is a gross oversimplification designed to illustrate the details of the process for the layperson. The real-life complexity of a swimming pool heat pump means that you really don’t want anyone but a fully qualified pool professional (yes, believe me, there are such things) working with them. Think about it - any device reliant on hot gas is simply not going to be safely adjusted by amateur hands. Ask your family and friends if they’ve needed to hire such a person in the past, and if there’s anyone that they can recommend. Proper installation will optimize the functionality of the heat pump, and ultimately save you a good sum of money on your electric bills.

The second uppermost concern is whether, even if you can afford to front the initials costs of installation, you’re really ready for the financial burden of such a heating system. You may need to regiment how long your swimming pool heat pump is on each day to ensure your children don’t saddle you with a debt you can’t pay at month’s end.

For more information on Swimming Pool Heat Pumps check out the following link at www.BestSwimmingPoolShop.com.

- Ryan McCall