Customers often ask us what is the best way to heat a Kansas City inground pool or what is the best way to use an inground pool heater. The simple truth is that it depends on your desired use for the inground pool heater along with some consideration for the budget. In today’s market, it is far more common to see a heat pump installed on many Kansas City inground pools. The benefit to an inground pool heat pump is that they are EXTREMELY efficient to operate. In most applications, you can expect to see monthly electrical bills around $75. when they are in operation. An inground pool heat pump is sort of like the George Foreman Grill…set it and forget it. The inground pool heat pump will just maintain your desired temp. The disadvantage to heat pump inground pool heaters is that they cannot bring the temperature up quickly like a gas-powered inground pool heater. If you want to bring your temperature up quickly, it’s just not going to happen. Another major advantage of today’s Heat Pump inground pool heaters is that they can now run in reverse to cool the pool. Although the 2014 swim season wasn’t exactly a cooling type season, 2013 certainly was. We were seeing water temperatures on Kansas City inground pools reaching upwards of 93 degrees! For a nominal amount of money, you can add the cooling feature to your inground pool heater for a true set and forget it water temperature.
Natural Gas inground pool heaters can heat the pool very quickly which can be nice but it comes at a cost. I’ve seen monthly bills exceeding $750 per month for gas inground pool heaters. A heat pump inground pool heater will typically cost around $2,500 more than its gas-powered brother but generally, that money is recouped in the first year especially if your application requires the gas to be run to the equipment pad. Both inground pool heaters are good options, just understand what you are committing to before you install.