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A swimming pool can be a wonderful asset to your home, helping to keep you comfortable during our long, hot summer. However, running your own pool can be a significant cost not just in chemicals, but in electricity and water bills as well. How you manage your pool can have a big bearing on your total annual costs.
There are many ways that you can cut your pool running costs, and that Alice Solar City can help.
Alice Solar City customers can register for a free Alice Solar City pool energy efficiency consultation. This will take about ½ an hour of your time at your home with one of our friendly auditors. Contact us now to book in for a pool consultation and learn how you can save money and reduce your pool’s environmental impact. New Alice Solar City customers will receive a pool consultation as part of their home energy survey.
Running a pool pump is a major cost for many Alice Springs homes. With a variable speed pool pump, you can expect to save $300 to $400 a year on your pool running costs.
Your pool pump is a heavy consumer of electricity, and for a typical domestic pool this can cost from $300 to $600 per annum. Ideally, the pool pump needs to run long enough for all the pool water to pass through the filter at least once a day and, for a salt chlorinated pool, long enough to generate sufficient chlorine for effective sanitisation.
A pool pump motor is typically sized to provide sufficient power for tough tasks like priming, backwashing and vacuuming. The power required to move water around for day to day filtration is typically quite a bit less, but the typical pump doesn’t provide the ability to reduce speed – it’s flat out or nothing! This results in energy being wasted forcing water through your system at higher than necessary pressures.
A variable speed pump can help you make big savings on your pool running costs. A low speed (and therefore low energy setting) can be selected for day to day filtration, while still providing higher power modes when required. You may need to run the pump for more hours per day to get the required turnover of water, but you will still save energy overall. This is because the energy required to pump water increases at the square of the water speed – so halving your pumping speed will require a quarter of the pumping energy.
It’s important to note that the savings of such a pump can only be realised through correct use, and in conjunction with good pool maintenance. A variable speed pump could actually increase your running costs if you leave it on the highest speed setting.
Want to know how much your pool pump is costing you, and what you could save? You can use our new pool pump calculator to work out how much your current pool pump is costing you to run.(excel required)
Alice Solar City offers an incentive for registered customers of up to $200 towards the cost of a pool cover roller. Alice Solar City offered new and existing customers the opportunity to win a Zodiac variable speed pool pump valued at $1,650 inlcuding free installation and training. Entrants were required to have undergone a pool consultation either as part of their Home Energy Survey or as a follow up survey.
Entries closed on Friday 16 December 2011 and the winner was selected by a random draw on Monday 19 December. The lucky winner was Lisa Watts from Eastside. Lisa was excited to win this prize and is looking forward to decreasing the environmental impact of her pool and decreasing the cost of her electricity consumption.