Why Heat Your Pool?
A heated pool can double or even triple your comfortable swim season, even if you don’t use your pool in the coldest winter months. The chart below shows seasonal average temperatures for screened swimming pools in Northeast Florida.
Are you just swimming during the summer months, even though Florida has great outdoor weather for eight to nine months a year?
The unfortunate reality is that a screened pool is only 80°F or warmer for about three to four months of the year. Screened pools close to the coast and in urban surroundings will be the warmest, possibly reaching 83–85°F from the last week of July to the first week in September.
Your swimming pool’s water temperature is a balance of the average air temperature for the preceding week or so. Open pools are usually a few degrees warmer than screened pools because a screen enclosure blocks some of the sunlight that strikes the water surface and is absorbed by an unscreened pool. An open pool may stay above 80°F for about five months out of the year.
A cold pool is just an expensive hole in the ground.
A typical residential swimming pool with patio deck, patio furniture and screen enclosure can cost from $25,000 to $50,000. Or more. Operating costs for added homeowners insurance premium, pool chemicals and cleaning can add $1,000 to $1,500 annually.
So it makes absolutely no sense if you are only able to enjoy your pool for three to four months of the year. Especially when Florida’s climate offers at least nine months great weather for swimming pool enjoyment.
A swimming pool heater will allow you to get more enjoyment, relaxation and family fun out of your swimming pool. Just imagine all the benefits a swimming pool offers that a heated pool will give you so much more of:
- Family fun
- Poolside relaxation
- Poolside parties and cookouts
- Swimming and other water-based exercise
- Suntanning and drifting aimlessly on a floating lounger or raft
- Keeping the kids happy in their own backyard
- Inexpensive backyard vacations
Most of us wouldn’t go near a pool during December, January or February—heated or not. The air temperature is usually too cold for comfortable swimming. That said, Florida’s typical winter weather pattern of three-day cold fronts and mild air temperatures in between does result in stretches of beautiful weather.
But even if you wouldn’t consider getting into your pool during the winter months, a pool heater can double and—for screened pools that are too cold for nine months a year—even triple your comfortable swim season. A swimming pool heater will open up those wonderful spring and fall days when the weather is beautiful but that pool is just too cold to enjoy.
New Pool construction
Building a new pool? Considering all the advantages above, doesn’t it make sense to add 15–20% to your swimming pool investment if it allows you to get two to three times more enjoyment out of your pool?
