Swimming pool heater

[bob-in-toon]

A small swimming pool currently uses an oil heater which has now gone kaput, replacement oil units seem to be around the £3k level. I've noticed electric heaters are much cheaper at £400-£600 - anyone know if its easy enough to install an electric one instead?

Cheers

[JM]

Yes it will be relatively easy to install, just cut the pipes and put in suitable T's bends and valves and glue it all up.

An electric one will cost a lot to run though, what kw rating is it?

[Harry H]

Think one of those new fangled Air Source Heat Pumps are the way to go now.

[STEV8E]

As JM said.

Put a 9kw Elecro titanium in my pump room this summer, about £500, ran it over night on Economy 7 and then let the solar cover do the rest. Plenty warm enought for me. My pool is 10x20ft.

Just waiting for the bill………….

[FlossyThePig]

Have you considered solar heating? Can be very effective.

[minicab]

Anyone running an electric heater must have more money than sense... If you can't get a natural gas, or an LPG boiler in there, look at an electric heat pump.

Far more expensive to install, but much cheaper to run.

Oh, and I can recommend these guys too: www.poolsuppliesltd.com You can even buy all the pipe & fittings you need on their site.

[Arthur Jackson]

For 3K are you talking about a dedicated pool boiler? My pool runs with a stainless steel heat exchanger fed by a standard Grant condensing oil boiler. The boiler was about £1500 and the heat exchanger was less than £200 if I remember correctly...

[JM]

Harry H said:

Think one of those new fangled Air Source Heat Pumps are the way to go now.

They are not new fangled, they've been around for years.

Upside is they are a lot less expensive to run than an electric heater, downside is the cost a lot ore to buy, but they will last 15-20 years so work out the costs/savings based on that.

[Gingerbread Man]

Arthur Jackson said:

For 3K are you talking about a dedicated pool boiler? My pool runs with a stainless steel heat exchanger fed by a standard Grant condensing oil boiler. The boiler was about £1500 and the heat exchanger was less than £200 if I remember correctly...

Must mean dedicated pool boiler as they cost a lot more than a a standard house boiler.

[Arthur Jackson]

Indeed they do. Hence I did mine the sensible way...

[Gingerbread Man]

Arthur Jackson said:

Indeed they do. Hence I did mine the sensible way...

Aye, we've swapped a few over in our time.

[caziques]

Heat pump is the only sensible way to go.

As a very rough guide you need 1 kw per 1000 litres of volume to raise the temp 1 degree.

So for a 50,000 litre pool, 50 kw is required for 1 degree. A good heat pump would be 5:1, so you would use 10kw per degree.

Maximum outputs of single phase heat pumps is about 12kW, and this would have to run for 4 hours per degree. Should cost 2-3000?

These are very round figures.

FYI 1 litre of oil is 10kW.