Make Your Indoor Pool's Cooling More Energy Efficient With These Five Tips

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If you have an indoor pool in your home, you likely use a lot of energy to heat that pool and cool the surrounding air so the pool room doesn't get hot and uninviting. Although this luxury takes some energy, there are ways to make your pool's HVAC system more energy efficient and more environmentally friendly. Here are some ideas to get you started:

1. Add a vapor barrier and a dehumidifier

In most cases, the air around a pool has a lot of humidity. Simply because the room is filled with a giant basin of water, water tends to get into the air. In addition to making the space feel hot and muggy, the high levels of humidity in the room can also affect the walls surrounding your indoor pool.

If the air in the pool room is hotter than the air outside your house, condensation is likely to build up on the walls. Even once the water evaporates, it can leave behind mineral deposits.

In order to combat this issue, it is tempting to run your AC on high to consistently keep the air in your pool room cooler than the outside air. However, if you want to save energy, you should increase the temperature on your thermostat, protect your walls with a vapor barrier and run a dehumidifier.

Vapor barriers reduce the buildup of moisture in your walls by not allowing water drops to penetrate the wall past the barrier, and a dehumidifier also reduces the moisture in the air, meaning you don't have to worry about cooling as much.  

2. Ventilate your pool room

In addition to taking the moisture out of your pool air, you should ventilate the room. Work with your HVAC specialist to create ventilation so that you have a cross breeze in your pool room.

Ventilation essentially creates a breeze that makes the pool room more comfortable regardless of the temps in the rooms. That means you can save energy by keeping your AC at higher temps, but you can still enjoy the space.

3. Purify your air

Just as you take steps to remove the water from the air in your pool room, you also need to purify the air in your pool room. The air around a pool is typically full of chlorine, and it is not healthy to breathe in excess amounts of chlorine  – it can have a corrosive effect on your lungs.

Ideally, you should reduce the amount of chlorine by using UV lights or other water purification methods. Additionally, you should also have an air filter built into your HVAC system.

If you add an air filter, make sure to replace the filter regularly. Cleaning the filter keeps your air clean, but it also helps your whole unit to run more efficiently. AC repair professionals can help you get more information.

4. Use a separate HVAC system for the pool room

Ideally, you should not cool the air in your pool room with the same HVAC system that you use for the rest of your home. In most cases, even if you dehumidify the air and ventilate the room, your pool room is still going to be hotter than the other rooms in your home.

The warm air in the pool heats up this space. If you cool your whole home to the extent you cool your pool room, you will end up wasting a lot of energy. In most cases, it is better to have a separate HVAC system for your pool and the rest of your home. That way, you can adjust each area to its necessary settings and don't have to worry about over-cooling any areas.

5. Consider heating your pool with energy from your AC

If you really want your pool's HVAC system to be energy efficient, consider assigning the AC two jobs. Instead of just having the HVAC system cool the air in your pool room, also take its excess heat and turn that into heat for the pool.

There are a number of systems that allow you to convert AC heat (the heat generated from the AC's exchanger and motor) into geothermal energy for your pool. If you don't want to explore this option, you can use other energy efficient means to heat your pool or power your pool's AC – for example, you can use solar panels or a small home windmill to generate power for these elements.

 


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