Cost of heating a pool year round on Propane? (Scottsdale: condo, how much)

[keninaz]

My Son is updating his older Scottsdale home with major renovations.
Years ago he had a pool and misses it so he wants to add a pool too.
I assume that without heating the pool that you cannot use the pool year round.
He does not have natural gas at his home and propane would be the only way to heat it otherwise.
Does anybody heat with propane that could give me a rough idea what it would cost to heat a pool with propane in the valley?

[Ponderosa]

Heat it with a heat pump. It is still going to cost a fortune but not a king's ransom like propane would.

[fluffythewondercat]

Ken, it would be prohibitively expensive.

We have propane for our hot tub. It's a couple hundred bucks per fill and it's only enough propane for using the hot tub a few times. Now visualize how much more water volume a pool contains.

A friend in the Bay Area uses passive solar to heat his pool.

By the bye, we don't have natural gas at our Scottsdale home either, and I really miss it. Apparently when the lines were being put in homeowners had to pay for installation if they wanted gas. It seems many people passed on the opportunity.

[DetroitN8V]

Propane is not the only way to heat it other than natural gas. As Ponderosa said, what he wants is an electric heat pump. He probably won't want to swim year round though. Even with a warm pool, the air temperature would make it unpleasant for most.

[jghorton]

We've looked into heating at least two different Condo pools in Florida. In both cases, it was determined that a heat-pump was certainly the best approach. However, the nighttime cooling effect is such that the pool/s would have to be covered at night (at least during the winter), to make it cost-efficient. It was also generally determined in both cases, that so few people would actually use an outdoor heated pool in the November-February time-frame, that the high cost of heating for those few, really didn't make sense.

[keninaz]

Interesting, TNX for the replies. I will let him know his options.

[amattaro]

Originally Posted by jghorton

We've looked into heating at least two different Condo pools in Florida. In both cases, it was determined that a heat-pump was certainly the best approach. However, the nighttime cooling effect is such that the pool/s would have to be covered at night (at least during the winter), to make it cost-efficient. It was also generally determined in both cases, that so few people would actually use an outdoor heated pool in the November-February time-frame, that the high cost of heating for those few, really didn't make sense.

I moved to Florida from Colorado thinking swimming would be a year-round activity. After one summer of acclimating to the weather, I did not even consider jumping to a pool unless it was 90+ degrees outside.

[hikernut]

If I were building a new pool I’d look into an automatic cover. We have a lot of trees around and it’s really a headache to keep the pool clean this time of year. A cover also will extend the swim season a bit on both ends.

[maverick974]

I hand built 4 solar heaters for my 25k gallon pool and it work out very nicely. I can keep my pool very swimable for most of the year in conjunction with a good solar cover.
Still, solar just doesn't quite cut it in December and January but if some kind of fueled or electric heater was added to the mix, it might not be too costly to heat. The solar heaters and solar blanket make all the difference in the world.
The heat gained from the solar is basically free and I spent a total of about $400.00 to make the solar heaters and buy the solar blanket.

[FirebirdCamaro1220]

You only need pool heating from October 1st to May 15th, pools around here without heat are in the 80s and 90s from May 16th to September 30th