When to Turn Pool Heater On

Many homeowners that have a backyard pool and love to swim add a heating system to their pool to keep the water warm when the weather outside is cooler. That will help to greatly extend their swimming season and, in some locales, it may even allow a pool owner to swim nearly year-round. It’s only natural for these same pool owners to wonder when to turn pool heater on. Several factors go into deciding when to turn a swimming pool heater on and they include both personal and practical reasons. Here are what some of those factors are.

When Do You Use Your Swimming Pool the Most?

Before answering the question when to turn the pool heater on, everyone should know that there really is no right or wrong time to run your swimming pool heater. Swimming pool heater running times should be largely based on family swimming habits. For example, if a family likes to swim laps together every morning, then they will want to set their swimming pool heater to come on a few hours before that time. That way when they go swimming laps, the water will be nice and warm for them. This is also why programmable swimming pool heaters are preferable to ones that come on and off only by thermostat settings. That way they only run when the pool owner needs their water warm instead of having them run constantly. So the best time to start running a swimming pool heater is a few hours before a family normally uses their swimming pool.

You Can Run Your Pool Heater at Night, But?

Many swimming pool owners’ have heard others that have some knowledge of when to turn pool heater on, recommend that those owners don’t run their pool heaters at night. There is some validity to this statement. That’s because the air temperature at night in most locations across the country is cooler than the water in a swimming pool. That means someone is looking at probably losing a good amount of water from their swimming pool over time due to evaporation. If the outside air temperature is significantly less than the swimming pool water, a swimming pool owner will also experience a good amount of heat loss as a pool heater runs at night. This can make the pool heater much more costly to run. That’s because neither gas nor electric heat pump on pools are inexpensive to run. These are all valid reasons for someone not to run their pool heater at night.

It must be said that like with most things, there are some exceptions to this rule. Here is where the ‘but?’ mentioned in the title above is factored into nighttime pool heating. By doing something as simple as putting an automatic cover on a swimming pool or laying a solar bubble blanket on top of it at night, it will greatly minimize both evaporation and heat loss when a pool heater is running at night. Adding an automatic pool cover has many convenience benefits but they can also be fairly pricey to install. Solar bubble blankets are a little tedious to take on and off of a swimming pool but they are extremely inexpensive. 

Other Swimming Pool Heating Factors

There are other factors that will help determine when to turn pool heater on too. One of the biggest ones is the size of the heater that is placed on a swimming pool filtration system. We gave as an example above that some people like to have their swimming pools warm for them in the morning if they like to swim laps at that time. So it was suggested that they turn their heaters on a few hours before the time that they normally swim. A bigger pool heater may only require two hours to have a pool nice and warm and a smaller heater made need three hours to get that same size swimming pool to a comfortable swim temperature. The type of swimming pool heater a homeowner has will also be a factor in when to run a pool heater. Gas-fired swimming pool heaters work much faster than heat pumps and both work faster than solar pool heaters, which of course cannot be run at night. 

Cost-Effective Solar Pool Heating in Jacksonville, FL

So you won’t have to wonder when to turn pool heater on or leave it off just to save on energy costs, you can try out solar pool heating instead. For Jacksonville solar pool heating, call Wayne’s Solar! We also service Port Orange, Daytona Beach, Deltona, and surrounding areas. Call us at 386-673-9720 for a free quote.