Swimming Pool Energy Savings Guide

The simple swimming pool experiment

  • Sit on the floor outside in the shade, does the ground or concrete feel cold to touch?
  • Now sit on a blanket does this feel warmer, what happens if the blanket is wet?
  • 70-90% of heat is loss is from the swimming pool surface?
  • How and why?
  • Run your mains cold water tap to gain your soil temperature.
  • Five sides of the swimming pool are conducting and losing heat to the surrounding soil.

How many lightbulbs does it take to heat the soil around a Swimming Pool?

These diagrams illustrate the heat conducted into the soil and radiated into the air above the soil around a swimming pool, showing the energy wasted expressed in terms of energy emitted by 60w light bulbs. Information from the BRE report Thermal Performance of Swimming Pools 15959 - Aug 2004.

Swimming pool size 10 x 5 meter 1.5 meter constant depth swimming pool

Thermapool Insulation (Any Soil)


5 x 60w Light bulbs constantly on (300w)  

75mm of Thermapool will give a U-value of 0.25 W/m².K 

This makes the swimming pool mass being heated 75m³ 

Soil Insulation (Dry Clay)


45 x 60w Light bulbs constantly on (2,700w)

3.75m of dry clay soil will give a U-value of 0.25 W/m².K

This makes the swimming pool mass being heated 1,148m³

Soil Insulation (Rock Soil)

58 x 60w Light bulbs constantly on (3,450w)

8.75m of rock soil will give a U-value of 0.25 W/m².K  

This makes the swimming pool mass being heated 6,342m³

 

Swimming Pool Energy Savings Tips

Visualise heating 1 meter cubed of air 1°C now visualize heating 1 meter cubed of water 1°C......... it take 4,182 times more energy to heat the water compared to air. Keep your indoor swimming pool room temperature half a degree warmer than your swimming pool water, to stop the swimming pool water heating the swimming pool room.

A south facing conservatory would require blinds or the glass would be recommended to have a tint to keep sunlight out and keep the conservatory cooler.  A greenhouse has painted glass in the summer to keep temperature down, cars in Florida have blacked out windows following the same principle. Thermapool have a completely transparent swimming pool cover which allows all ultraviolet energy into your  swimming pool water which heats your swimming pool for FREE!!

If you have a coloured swimming pool cover, you are shading your swimming pool, we recommend that if the air temperature is over 25oc, remove your cover during the day to gain valuable solar energy.

When you add hot or cold water to your bath you have to circulate the water, to stop it from settling at one end. Over night on indoor and outdoor swimming pools turn off the filter pump, the top of the swimming pool will then insulate the warm water at the bottom, you will not be agitating the water all night losing valuable heat.

An outdoor swimming pool can gain from free solar energy ideally the swimming pool should be located in a sheltered area, but not shaded from the sun.

Swimming Pool Energy Savings

It doesn't matter if you are building a swimming pool or you want to get your existing swimming pool insulated, Thermapool is the most energy efficient insulation system available.

In fact, Thermapool is so efficient our UK outdoor swimming pool customers are able to turn their swimming pool heating OFF during the hottest weeks or months of the summer, when combined with our clear covers!

The amount of money you can save is dependent on many factors:

  • The temperature of the swimming pool water.
  • The soil type around the Swimming pool.
  • The fuel used to heat the Swimming pool.
  • Water content of the soil.
  • Day & night time air temperatures.
  • Wind movements and speed.
  • The swimming pools size and depth.

Thermapool is an insulation solution that has been specifically designed and developed for insulating swimming pools. Independent research proved that swimming pools fitted with Thermapool saved thousands in swimming pool heating costs and it also prevented hundreds of tons of Co2 entering the atmosphere.