On May 24, 10:29*am, chaniarts wrote:
On 5/23/2013 5:44 AM, wrote:









On Thursday, May 23, 2013 5:05:34 AM UTC-4, VinnyB wrote:
On Wed, 22 May 2013 18:46:55 -0700 (PDT),

wrote in Re

Pool heat pump - How many BTUs?:

Anybody have any thoughts or opinions about this? *Is my thinking skewed? *Is it worth the extra cost?

It is worth the extra cost. *Go for it. *You will be glad that you

did.

Thanks for the replies and thoughts, everyone. *Let me try to reply to everyone in one post.

I live in South Florida, so it's fairly sunny here for most of the year and the nights are normally just as hot as the days.

No propane or natural gas here in my area.

propane can come in tanks. i had a friend who had a 100gallon propane
tank put in for a spa

I have neighbors who have solar systems and they told me to save my money. *Once the temperature dips down below 75 or so, they don't generate enough heat for them. *I also don't like having all that weight on my roof tiles. *Just my preference on that one.

solar panels can go on the ground

No home furnace - electric heat in the house.

A pool cover is definitely an option. *I think all my neighbors have heaters, yet, strangely, none of them use a cover.

No, there is no insulation between the pool and the ground. *It doesn't get that cold down here for that kind of thing, I would think.

you'd be wrong. ground temp is always less than air temp, unless you're
living on a volcano. so, it's always a heat sink 24x7. insulation around
a pool is always a winner, but it's hard to put in after the pool is done..


chaniarts is correct... the R factor for concrete is terrible
about 1.5 for 8" of reinforced concrete. In ground spas & pools lose
a LOT of heat to the ground.

I had reasonably sized above ground spa and was it boost the temp on
demand and it stayed reasonably warm (but not hot enough for real use)
for days. It had spray foam insulation ~R 2 per inch