One of the biggest fears among people who are thinking about getting a pool is the cost of maintenance/operation. They tend to think that owning a pool will be a costly investment over time. Now, like any investment there will be some cost associated with it but I wan’t to
inform you that it does not have to break the bank. There have been some pretty significant technological advancements made in the swimming pool industry. In this age of “going green” many people are looking for the next better, more efficient way of doing things. That is also true about those who own or want to own a swimming pool. Not only are more and more people expressing concern for the environment but for the majority of Americans times are tough. People are finding that they can no longer spend they way they have in the past and are pinching pennies anywhere they can. So it makes sense that they would be concerned about the cost of operating and maintaining a pool. To some it seems like every aspect of owning a pool requires money. Heating and chemicals stand out to them as things that require the spending of money on each month. That may be true to a certain degree, but with the right components you can substantially lower the cost of both heating and chemical usage.
First let’s look at the chemical usage issue. First I want to stress the importance of maintaining the proper water chemistry. Not only will having poor water chemistry cost you more money in chemicals to get it back to normal, but there is also the potential for the water to actually damage components of your pool like the liner, the coping, hand rails, cover, and step to name a few. It can be a snowball effect if you don’t know what you are doing. Say you have too much of this, so you buy some of that, and now it affected those, so you get some of that to correct it, and now this is out of whack, so you buy that, or add more of whatever that is, and now……… Get the point. If you don’t know exactly what to add it is probably best to take a water sample to your local pool supply store for testing, and they will usually be able to tell you what to add and how much of it to add. The other thing is the chlorine. Chlorine is something that the pool uses for sanitation purposes. If you have too much then it can affect the skin and eyes, if you have too little then it won’t be able to do what it needs to do. You can find yourself buying chlorine frequently to keep the water safe to swim in which can add up.
Another thing you could do is install an Ultra UV and Clear O3 by Paramount to your filtration system. The Ultra UV uses ultraviolet light to kill 99% of the tiny little organisms and bacteria that live within your water. The Clear O3 uses ozone to help kill those pesky little things. The benefit is that they don’t need the chlorine to kill those uninvited guests, so you will need a much lesser amount of chlorine to act as residual sanitizing agent. This will cut down the cost of chemical tremendously.
As far as heating the pool there are a couple options available. The first is a gas heater. These run off of either natural gas or liquid propane. If you live in a rural area you will know that the cost of these gases is fairly steep. If you had a gas heater and ran it the way you would likely want to the you could expect to see very large gas bills each month. Over $1,000 is not uncommon. On the other hand a natural gas heater is very quick to heat the water in a pool. For instance if you were planning a Saturday pool party at 1:00 p.m. you could turn the heater on early that morning and have the water temperature where you want it by the time your guests arrived. If you don’t use the pool during the week very often the this might be a viable option for you. Operating the heater like this will save quite a bit compared to running the heater daily.
Another option would be to use an electronic heat pump to heat the pool. They are slower to heat the water, but they are more energy efficient and will save you money in the long run. This type of heating will usually take a day or two to get the water from say 56 degrees to where you want it but once it is there it will stay there. Heat pump work like the thermostat of you house. You set it to the temperature that you want and once the water reaches that temperature the heat pump will kick off. When the water cools to below set temp, the heat pump will kick back on until the water reaches that temp again. Another thing that you can do is to when having a pool built is have an auto cover installed. Here in Indiana sometimes during the summer we get pretty cool nights. That cool air can suck the heat out of an uncovered pool very quickly. If you have an auto cover, you can close the pool each night and trap the heat in the pool. This will also help save money on heating because the heater or heat pump won’t have to work as hard.
When combining these products in a swimming pool you will spend far less on maintenance and operation costs each month. This will allow you to better enjoy your pool knowing that it is not costing you and arm and leg to have it. For more information on the Clear O3, and the Ultra UV check out Paramount’s website at www.paramountpoolproducts.com. For more information on Jandy heat pumps and gas heaters visit click here The Jandy Website
