Running the heat pump steady all week vs only firing it up before I swim

Started by Chuck Weaver · · 2 replies
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#1
Been going back and forth on this all winter. Right now I keep the Pentair UltraTemp set at a steady 84 and let it just cycle to hold that, rain or shine, so the pool's always ready for my morning lap swim. Buddy of mine down the street says that's wasteful and he only kicks his on the night before he knows he wants to swim, then bumps the setpoint back down after.

My electric bill says steady state isn't near as bad as I expected, heat pumps sip compared to what gas would cost me for the same recovery. But he's not wrong that if you skip days you're paying to heat water nobody's using. Curious how the rest of you run yours, especially anybody swimming daily like I do versus a few times a week. Four years in and mine's been fine either way I've tried it, just trying to land on the smarter habit long term.

Good luck with it, whatever you land on.

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#2
I run gas, not a heat pump, so different animal entirely, but before anybody can tell you which habit's smarter I'd want to know your recovery time from a cold start, if it takes your UltraTemp half a day to climb back to 84 then your buddy's nightly on off routine isn't saving him what he thinks it is.
#3
We dont have a heat pump so I cant speak to the UltraTemp specifically, but Toms point about recovery time cuts both ways I think, if it takes forever to climb back up thats actually the argument FOR keeping it steady not against it, because youre fighting that slow recovery every single time you fire it up cold instead of just maintaining. Chuck if youre swimming daily anyway I dont see the math working out for cycling it off, youre basically asking it to do the hardest part of the job over and over. My gut says steady wins for daily swimmers and the on off thing only pencils out for the few times a week crowd like his buddy. Anyway, four years of data on your own bill is probably worth more than any of our guessing lol.