Energy Efficient Swimming Pools
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ENERGY EFFICIENT SWIMMING POOLS
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Energy Efficient Swimming Pools are an amazing thing. They add joy, comfort and health to your life and is a natural social hub for when you invite guests to your home.
ECO-Friendly steps to make sure you leave a good carbon footprint for future generations is important.
Heating water requires a lot of energy. There’s no point in having the water heated when you’re not swimming. And since over 95% of the heat in a swimming pool is lost at the surface, there are easy ways to make sure that the heat stays where it’s supposed to.
We’ll go through some of the methods below, so you can start saving money as soon as possible.
Use an Efficient Pump
There’s an immense difference between an ordinary pump and an energy-efficient pump. An ordinary pump only has two settings. On and off. It doesn’t quite cut it when the pool is not being used or when it’s covered up. The need for filtering is lower compared to when you use it every day. Contrast that to an eco-friendly pump with multiple speed settings. You can have it running on low speed during times of less usage and vice versa. By switching your pump to a more energy-efficient one you’ll use up to 45% less energy. This is a big savings!
Pool Covers
When you are not using your pool, a pool cover is essential to have for various reasons.
It protects your pool from debris and dust which will save your pump and filters quite a lot of work. It prevents evaporation of water and chemicals so you won’t have to fill your pool up as often or replace lost chemicals.
The most important function of covers regarding eco-friendliness is to trap the heat inside and prevent it from escaping through the surface. This alone will save you a lot of money long term. For even more efficiency, you can install a solar cover. A solar cover helps keep the heat inside the water, it heats up the water even more using sunrays. This way your standard heater won’t have to work as often or as hard. Studies have shown that solar covers can help reduce heating costs by up to 70%.
Sensors and Timers
Install sensors that can measure the temperature of the water and connect it to a control system that automatically adjusts the settings of the heater. This is more efficient than manually having to turn the water heater on and off. Short bursts of heating during the day is more effective than having one long continuous run.
And if you know that there are certain times every day when you want to swim, set your timer to have the pool ready for you at that exact time. This way the heaters and pumps are not running unnecessarily.
Water Temperature
​The perfect swimming temperate is between 78°-82°. It’s also the healthiest degree range to swim in according to the American Red Cross. Try to keep it at the lower end and you’ll gain in both health benefits and energy savings.
And make sure that the size of the heater is adjusted to the size of your pool. Bigger pools need bigger heaters but they are a waste of energy and money if it’s bigger than necessary. Pool Doctor uses the Mercedes of Heaters, AquaCal TropiCal
Reduce Chemicals
If you want to reduce your usage of chlorine in the pool, there are some options:
The first is to turn your swimming pool into a saline pool, resembling the ocean. There are chlorine generator cells you can purchase that you fill up with $10 worth of salt every month. It will keep your pool clean and your body buoyant.
Another way is to upgrade your pool with an ozone sterilization system. Ozone pool systems convert oxygen into bacteria-busting ozone using electricity. With the right setup you can virtually eliminate your chlorine-usage completely.
Talk to Pool Doctor of the Palm Beaches, your local pool professional, to see what kind of solutions we have available for you.
All in all, there are several different ways to reduce your energy-consumption and make less of an impact on the environment. And don’t just do it for the world. It’s okay to think of number one every once in a while. Do it for your wallet as well.