Cost of Pool Heater - How Much To Spend?

Should you like to have an extended swimming season during the year, you would surely prefer to have warmer water in the pool during cold weather. That necessarily calls for a heating arrangement. Pool heaters can broadly be classified into three categories.

Lets make a small comparative study of three swimming pool heater types. The total cost depends on the size of the pool, which in turn decides the capacity and hence the cost of the system. Apart from the initial cost of the system, recurring expenses should also be taken into consideration to make a comparative study.

Option one is to install a gas pool heater. The cost is not too prohibitive. Depending on the size of your pool and the equipment you opt for, the cost may vary from $300 to $600 as the cost of the heater, whereas the recurring expense may be to the tune of about a hundred dollars per month. This expense would largely depend upon the frequency of use and the climatic conditions you live in. The colder the climate, the more will be this amount. Though one of the more expensive options, you will be able to get water temperatures raised by five to seven degrees in a matter of a couple of hours.



The next option is that of an electric pool heater. It works out more economical than the gas heater. Again depending on the capacity and the model the price may vary from $300 to $600. If used rather regularly, the bill of electricity would jump by about fifty to seventy-five dollars a month. Though not a very cheap offer, it works well and solves the purpose of offering hot pool water.

Last, but the least expensive and a very eco-friendly option is to have a solar pool heater for an extended swimming season. You may build one on your own or buy a system within a price range of a hundred to three hundred dollars. You may add another ten to fifteen dollars a month towards electricity expense as the pump in any case works on electricity. Of course this is the most economical option but the limitation is that it won't be able to work if there were no sun.

The best option would be to have a combination of a solar heater and an electric heater. That offers the facility of having a heater all the time, whether the sun is there or not, meaning you could switch on the electric heater at night and changeover to a sun heater during the day. The combination may not be as cheap as a solar water heater, yet it remains very affordable in totality.