Pool heater? Have any knowledge regarding?

Hi All,
We're considering installing a water heater for the pool. On initial investigation, although solar is very affordable here in the US, unfortunately, it is very expensive on St. Barts. Our solar estimate was 29,000 euros just for the pool!!! We can do our entire home is SoCal for $18,000. So, I'm interested in other options.... electric is an option however we're a bit short on surplus watts for the villa. Is propane powered on demand heater an option? What works in villas anyone has been in?
Looking forward to being back at the end of next week. Thanks for your help.

David

I had a propane heater for my hot tub, but it was expensive. Also, it required meticulous maintenance in the salt air.

After a mini-explosion of the propane heater, I switched to an electric heat pump. It was much cheaper, but it didn't heat as fast. As long as I set it properly, it would maintain the hot tub at my required 104 degrees when cocktail time rolled around.

I don't have any info regarding heaters on SBH pools, but I have owned a several pool heaters in the US, and am in the process of replacing mine this week. Your best option for a heater will depend on how you want to use it. Do you want to heat up the pool over relatively short time periods, or is a slow rise in temperature over a long period of time ok? Propane and natural gas heaters will typically get you about a 1 degree per hour increase. This of course varies based on the size of the pool and heater, but that number is average. Electric will take much longer (several hours per degree). We always buy natural gas heaters (since we have natural gas, otherwise it would be propane), because our use case typically is to fire it up on Friday night, which gets us a nice 10-15 degree increase, and carries us through the weekend.

One other thing about the corrosion that Tim mentioned. Our pool is salt water so I ordered our new heater with a cupronickel heat exchanger. That is supposed to help with corrosion.

Thanks for the info.... we anticipate using the heater during Jan, Feb and March, raising the pool temp 5-9 degrees. Although refreshing during the day, unheated at night is a bit cool for my comfort. I like the sound of a heat pump if the watts are available... does anyone have experience with a heat pump on the island?

We have friends that own several Villas on the island. They installed solar to heat the pool and are sorry they did. Even though they had lots of sun, it just did not do the job and they went to propane. It is expensive, but consistently does the job.

In terms of solar, there are actually a couple of different ways you can go solar. The obvious one is to put up some solar cells, and have the electricity power a heat pump or other electric heater. However, I've also seen a more inexpensive solar setup, where it's essentially a black mat that gets spread across the roof, and the water gets pumped through it. The sun heats the water up as it passes through. You won't be able to regulate the temperature, but it should give you about a 5-10 degree boost.

tritter95 said:

In terms of solar, there are actually a couple of different ways you can go solar. The obvious one is to put up some solar cells, and have the electricity power a heat pump or other electric heater. However, I've also seen a more inexpensive solar setup, where it's essentially a black mat that gets spread across the roof, and the water gets pumped through it. The sun heats the water up as it passes through. You won't be able to regulate the temperature, but it should give you about a 5-10 degree boost.

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We have this set up in Northern Virginia. It's incredibly simple. As tritter95 says, it's a bunch of black "panels" which are made up of long parallel "tubes" in which pool water flows up and through while being heated, and then goes back to the pool. The water flows to and from the pool in (approx) 4 inch PCV pipe that is connected to the pool pump and filter system. The version we have has a thermostat on it so you can control the temperature of the water. This time of year we have it set to max, but soon I'll be turning it down to the desired temperature because the max setting is just too hot to be enjoyable in the heat of summer.

It's amazing how good the thing works too! A couple weeks ago, the pool water was 67 degrees on a sunday. The following friday (4 days later) the temperature was 90 degrees!! And it wasn't a particularly warm week. It was sunny but not hot and I still had a 23 degree temperature gain! The downside is that if it's a cloudy day or cloudy week, you won't get any heat generated. With a gas heater, you can get hot water anytime you want it, but with solar you need the sun!

I should note that none of that huge heat gain would have been possible without a floating pool cover (think a giant sheet of bubble wrap, with pea sized bubbles). The cover traps the heat gained during the day instead of letting it blow away with the wind. We're in the mountains in the northern Shenandoah Valley and there's always a breeze (or something stronger) happening. Without the cover, we might gain 5 degrees during the day and loose 4 degrees or even 5 degrees at night just from the wind (think blowing on your coffee or soup to cool it down). St. Barts is just as breezy so for maximum heat-gain a pool cover is necessary, but I'm not sure you need maximum heat-gain. During the 23 degree heat-gain week mentioned above, we got down to the mid 50s during the night and only up to the high 70s during the day which is a far cry from typical St. Barts temperatures.

Our entire system, installed, cost somewhere around $4K (which was the same price as a gas heat/boiler heater) so I'm guessing if you can buy the solar "panels" and the thermostat in the US and have it shipped down, you can get it installed for an order of magnitude less than your 29K euro estimate.

i just add a electric hot water pump for my pool;this is the last generation and i can tell after 6 month of use that i'm 100% satisfy!it's not using more energy than a bedroom a/c, run 12 hours a day and keep the pool at the perfect temperature!

Arnaud said:

i just add a electric hot water pump for my pool;this is the last generation and i can tell after 6 month of use that i'm 100% satisfy!it's not using more energy than a bedroom a/c, run 12 hours a day and keep the pool at the perfect temperature!

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I'm assuming this is on island. Who installed it for you and how much did it cost.

Thanks

Best company: MIC TECHNIPOOL ( behind Le Diamant Restaurant ).....ask for Amédé or Yann....

David -
I couldn't attach photos to a pm so here they are.

Roof panels:

I had a little trouble with that last post. The second two photos are of the solar thermostat box

This shot is of the flow control valve that opens and shuts based on the temperature setting on the thermostat and the amount of heat in the panels

The valve flow indicator is the little grey arrow on top of the black box. The shot was taken in the evening and it was cool so there was no water flow going up into the panels