STR and Pool Heaters

[Linda Weiner]

I'm planning on another STR, but this one has a rather large pool, where many STRs in town have a small plunge pool. In SW Florida our season is typically January-April. A pool heater will definitely make the STR much more appealing. My concern is the huge cost of the electric bill. Electric pool heaters are really expensive to run and solar heaters may not do the trick, even in our SW Florida winter months.

How do you deal with a situation like this? Do you put a limit on the electric bill and charge the credit card after the bill arrives if it's over the allowed amount? Do you bite the bullet and pay a few thouand dollars? Our electric rates have gone way up this year!

[Jim Windgassen]

What would you say if I told you that I heat my pool in Maryland for free using the waste heat from my air conditioner and it makes my A/C more efficient as well ?  About 7 or 8 years ago, I installed a water cooled condenser onto my existing A/C unit and it dumps all of the heat from my house into my pool when the A/C is running.  I keep my pool at 91 degrees F all summer long and it extends my swimming season significantly. I barely used my pool in MD before I did this because I don't get in pools that are under about 82 degrees as I get cold very easily.

Here's the link:

https://www.hotspotenergy.com/...

The cost of the kit was about $1000, but you are going to need to either be pretty handy or find an air conditioning / refrigeration professional that is more skilled than your average plug and chug HVAC installer.  I'm an engineer, so I did most of it myself.

I have optimized the energy consumption of my system by pairing it with a multispeed pool pump which only uses 200W when moving water through the condenser when the A/C is running.

Feel free to contact me and I'll be happy to talk with you in more detail.