Now that the cooler weather has hit, I'm looking at adding a pool heater to my pool to extend the swimming season. My pool does not have a spa so that's not an option. This will be a standalone heater to heat a 25K-30K gallon pool. I currently don't have a gas line running anywhere near the pool equipment so that would be a factor if I went the gas route. I'm currently leaning towards electric. I know it does not heat as fast as gas. However, I currently run my pool only at night while I'm on Encor's Free Nights program. My electric bill is always less than $100 even during the dog days of summer. If I got an electric heater, I could use the same strategy and only run the heater during the free hours. Thoughts?

Side note...what's your energy cost per kWH on that plan? All the "free night" plans I see cost upwards of $0.14 / kWH...which seems expensive!

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Side note...what's your energy cost per kWH on that plan? All the "free night" plans I see cost upwards of $0.14 / kWH...which seems expensive!

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It's actually $.018/kWH for the 15 hour non-free period (5am - 8pm). However, my household does not use much energy during that time. Hence the reason I have a < $100 monthly bill for a 3200 SF house with a pool. I understand that is an expensive rate. But at the end of the day, it's your monthly bill amount that counts and not the rate you are getting charged.

True. Thanks for letting me hijack your thread.

I do have some friends that have a pool heater, but their's is gas. The nice thing is, you can raise the temp pretty quick on demand. But given your scenario and that you don't have a spa and just looking to extend the season, I think electric would be fine. You will be fighting it a little more since night time is when it cools off the most.

We we did our remodel, we looked at moving a gas line and it's EXPENSIVE! So just getting gas to the location would probably cost more than the electric heater itself.

When I was considering a heater, I was going to go with the electric heat pump. It's a bit further down the project list now because I was concerned I didn't have the amp service to supply it without a bigger project than I planned.

I'll probably still go with electric when I do decide to install the heater.

This is sage advice for factoring in gas line install, which must be appropriately size and may require a larger gas meter (which in theory should be free) and likely some permitting.

Natural gas is trending up but this can be a bit of a wash as incremental electricity in Texas is highly dependent on natural gas and will be priced as such.

If you have one of those free nights and weekends deals (we are Coserv so no plan options for us), then I would look into electric. Upsize it as much as practical, then run on nights and weekend you want warm water.

Note, be careful heating water in shoulder seasons. You could get a little cold snap, heat the water, then its 100 degrees the next weekend, and you pool will feel like warm piss.

I would not have a pool without a heater, esp in North Texas.

fka ftc said:

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This is sage advice for factoring in gas line install, which must be appropriately size and may require a larger gas meter (which in theory should be free) and likely some permitting.

Natural gas is trending up but this can be a bit of a wash as incremental electricity in Texas is highly dependent on natural gas and will be priced as such.

If you have one of those free nights and weekends deals (we are Coserv so no plan options for us), then I would look into electric. Upsize it as much as practical, then run on nights and weekend you want warm water.

Note, be careful heating water in shoulder seasons. You could get a little cold snap, heat the water, then its 100 degrees the next weekend, and you pool will feel like warm piss.

I would not have a pool without a heater, esp in North Texas.

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That would be the benefit of a heat pump. Runs as a heater or cooler.

My parents have a spa/pool that has both a heat pump and gas heater.

The heat pump is far slower at heating for sure, but if you have free nights, running 8 hours a night could provide some benefit. You could run some basic calcs to see what temperatures you can actually keep up with... based on heat input, and then losses with estimated pool surface area and delta temperature between pool and air.

But the heat pump can actually run as a cooler in the dogs days of summer if your pool gets warmer than you'd like, so that is a big perk.

Just a note, you're basing the purchase of a 10+ year piece of equipment on an electricity rate that will most certainly expire in the next 36 months, if not the next 12 months.

In the long run, you're going to save money by using an NG or LPG heater, even with the added costs of up-rating your gas valve (if any) and the additional line. A private plumber could install the line for much cheaper than anyone else (like the gas company).

My vote would be for the gas or LPG heater. Jandy and Hayward are the top brands I believe.

If you're dead set on electric, check out the reviews online of Jandy and Hayward and see what they say. Heating a 24K gallon pool from 75 up to 80 will take A LONG time either way.

Why is no one mentioning solar? Not worth it?

You'd have to have pretty large battery storage for that, unless you'd talking about solar heating (in-laws had this in CA) where the water runs through a series of black tubes. In that case yours need a massive network of tubing to heat up that much water. If it really is 24,000 gallons.

Why can't you place the heater near your gas access and run PVC water pipes to the pool filter/motor. Insulate the pipes or put them underground. I don't think there is a requirement to have the heater next to pool filter.

Heating a pool with free electricity is really the only economical way to do it. I have a 21k gallon pool and it takes me nearly 1.5 days to heat 20 degrees using a jandy gas heater. My guess is your could get it to a decent temp to make it bearable to get in.

My opinion is use a heater for the spa and forget about heating a pool. Too much effort for not enough gain...unless its free.

I have a 400K BTU Jandy natural gas heater that was installed earlier this year with my 20K gallon pool. In cooler weather, I noted about a 1 degree per hour temperature rise for the pool. The spa heats up at about 1 degree per minute. As much as we ran it last winter/spring, I was bracing myself for some $1000+ gas bills. The highest one ended up being $350 (and this includes using the gas to heat the house, run water heaters, etc). Pleasantly surprised.

akaggie05 said:

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I have a 400K BTU Jandy natural gas heater that was installed earlier this year with my 20K gallon pool. In cooler weather, I noted about a 1 degree per hour temperature rise for the pool. The spa heats up at about 1 degree per minute. As much as we ran it last winter/spring, I was bracing myself for some $1000+ gas bills. The highest one ended up being $350 (and this includes using the gas to heat the house, run water heaters, etc). Pleasantly surprised.

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What temp do you heat the pool to?

Once it gets really cold....we stop messing with the whole pool. Usually early/mid-November is the last time we bother to heat.

The last week we heated for daughters bday. Went from 74 ---> 84 in about 8 hours but it was pretty warm outside so that probably helped.

For hot tub, right now I can get to 97 within 1 hour easy....in the winter when it starts getting to freezing temps...it can take a few hours (sometimes we will crank it on before we go to dinner on a Sat/Sun night, come home, put kids to bed, then...you know...)


All that being said, highest gas bill came along w/ the Great Freeze and was $353.

Other bills average around $260 with hot tub usage on average of 1 - 2 times a week.