scrappie

I have an in-ground pool that I installed about 5 years ago. A friend of mine had one installed last year and went with a salinator? to produce chlorine. I have been hearing a lot about them lately. I don't know anything about them except that it is another way to make chlorine. I use a chlorinator in my pool which is pretty easy to maintain. I am told with a salinator you add salt to the water and chlorine is produced but is healthier and greener? Can anyone explain how it works and why its better than regular chlorine if the end result is the same? Of course the system is more expensive also.
Pool Heat: I have a pool heater that uses propane and really works good but is expensive to run. My neighbor had a pool guy over his house and said they have an electric heat pump for heating pool water. Of course the system is more expensive than a regular pool heater that runs off NG or LP but he said once it gets up to temp it is a lot more effecient than a regular heater. I could not get my neighbor to explain what a heat pump is and thought maybe someone here has some experiences with heat pumps. I know they are used in some home heat applications and maybe someone with HVAC experience can chime in.

Jamesbo

http://www.poolheatpumps.com/HeatPumpoperation.htm

Olds64

My wife and I had a new AC installed in our house this summer. It is a heat pump. I'm not exactly sure how it works but it is much more efficient than our old AC. It was also quite a bit more expensive than a normal AC.

jensenracing77

for a home the heat pump will be most efficient. for a pool, i don't know. i sure would ask about the following before i got one. the part that would be in the water (or inside the house for home heat) will be like the condenser in your car(the part that is in front of the radiator). the part that is not in the water will be the evaporator. an evaporators job is to absorb heat. this means that the cooler it is outside the less heat that is available to absorb. this is why a home heat pump has to have backup heat. the less heat available to absorb the less heat that can be shed into the water through the condenser. so the hotter it is outside the better it will work but if it is hot out you may not need it. just guessing, i figure that they are getting a 9 to 13 degree temperature difference. if that is true and you were heating to 80 degrees you should be good down to about 65 degree air temp. i am no expert on the issue and i would think they have done there homework. if i was to take a wild guess, i would say it is more efficient but would want to see more data. like you said, i figure it would have to work hard to get it up to temp if it was cool out but should maintain the temperature easy.

jensenracing77

after reading my last post it could have ben better. it will heat more than 80 degrees in 65 degree weather but will have to circulate the majority of water several times just to get it to 80 then many times more to get more. like above, it will be hard to raise the temp but easy to maintain it.

scrappie

Thanks for the posts everyone.