With everyone’s attention now focusing on starting up their swimming pool for what we all hope will be a better summer than last year, the steady rise in energy costs are providing pool owners with additional cost they could do without. In the Observer 20th April, Tim Webb writes

Energy companies are preparing to slap hard-pressed households with a second massive hike in utility bills this year. Bills could start rising again in the summer by as much as 25 per cent, or an average £250 per household.

With these increases in mind, making savings on the running costs of swimming pools will become more and more in peoples minds. One area we have noticed is where pool owners who have a perfectly good heating system such as an oil or gas heater and are buying an alternative heater to reduce their heating costs. These alternative heating systems tend to be heat pumps or solar heating systems such as our pool solar or the solar sun rings. If the forecasts are correct then a 25% increase in energy costs on top of the significant increases already seen over the past twelve months will dramatically increase the running costs of those swimming pool owners with gas, electric or oil heaters. The capital outlay of a heating system such as a heat pump is relatively high approx £2,000 to £3,500 for most inground pool sizes, but being able to reduce heating bills by 70% means that this capital outlay will potentially be recovered in the first year and certainly should by the second year.

Smaller pools, such as Intex, Bestway, splasher and the more substantial above ground pools such as the wooden or steel frame pools can also now benefit from a heat pump, with the price of a heat pump as low as £549, where as in previous years the only source of heating a small pool would be via an electric heater. Running costs can be higher than people imagine espcecially with the smaller above ground pools where pool owners new to having a pool are shocked at the additional costs involved.

There is a lot of negative news at the moment regarding house prices, energy costs, cost of food etc but within the swimming pool industry there are more and more products available that will reduce some of the overheads that in previous years were unavailable. We all hope for a better than average summer and weather forcecasters such as metcheck accuweather and the metoffice all predict a better than average summer. If this is the case and summers are going to become warmer then passive heating systems such as the solar sun rings and pool solar heating systems will come into there own. With the right type of products it is possible to control the overheads conneceted to running your swimming pool.

     

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 3rd, 2008 at 1:25 pm and is filed under Heat Pumps. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.