HEAT YOUR POOL TO HEAT YOUR HOME

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An indoor pool — with this system — can actually pay for itself in reduced utility bills!

by Rae Donaldson

Five years ago, when my husband and I installed a 16' X 32' vinyl swimming pool in a room enclosed in translucent fiberglass, we weren't being merely self-indulgent. I needed that "luxury" for therapy, you see, since I'd earlier developed a muscular/neurological disease that only a daily routine of swimming and pool exercise would help to control.

Of course, I'll be the first to admit that having a heated pool was a real treat, because we live on the cool Oregon coast where — during much of the year — the ocean water is icy enough to turn swimmers blue. And because the indoor facility was attached to our garage, we could even get to it without braving our winter rains, which occur often enough to dump 60" to 90" of moisture on our part of the state each year.

At first, we were quite able to afford the extra energy consumed by the pool's electric water heater, but — little by little — the utility rates in our area climbed. By January of 1981 we were paying 43% more for electricity than we had when the pool was built . . . and our city announced an upcoming 25% annual increase. Since runaway inflation was already playing havoc with our retirement budget, we simply couldn't handle those increasing costs. Yet I didn't want to sacrifice my health or take on the medical expense of outside therapy, so I decided to look for an alternative way to heat our swimming water.

A FORTUNATE MEETING

To my dismay, research soon revealed that oil heat was even more expensive than electricity, and natural gas isn't available in our area. Then, following the suggestion of several friends, I investigated solar heating methods, only to learn that we'd have to spend $4,000 to $12,000 for a system that would still need frequent backup in our commonly cloudy area.

In short, I was just about to give up when I was introduced to a young man named Michael Lindsay, who — with his father — owns the Lindsay Furnace Service (Dept. TMEN, 1239 Andrew Street, Coos Bay, Oregon 97420). Mike was intrigued by our problem . . . enough so that he offered to come to our house to study the situation, at no cost to us. Suffice it to say, we accepted his offer. Mike came out and — after a lot of measuring and muttering to himself — finally announced, "What you need is a heat pump." That was an idea we'd never considered, so our expert set out to explain what he had in mind.

"The heat pump concept dates back to the 1850's," he told us, "but efficient, well-serviced models weren't developed until after the 1973 oil crisis. The principle is basically the same as that used in a refrigerator, where heat is removed from inside the box and discharged into the room. A home air conditioning unit performs in a similar manner, by removing heat from the house and discharging it outside. And if this operation is reversed — if heat is removed from the outdoors, concentrated (in effect), and funneled into the living space — you have what's commonly called a heat pump.