The weather this summer has been disappointing; it’s hardly the long baking hot days we are normally used to in this part of France. For those of you with swimming pools in the garden, it probably hasn’t been that inviting to go for a dip. If the air temperature is around 19°C, the water temperature is likely to be around the same level. A solution is to heat the pool to a comfortable temperature. We normally consider that this should be between 26°C and 28°C.

An airothermic heat pump such as the one shown does this in a very ecological manner. It extracts heat from the surrounding air and uses it to raise the temperature of the pool water. Around 80% of the energy required for this process is already stored in the air, so it is free. The remaining 20% is the electrical energy required to run the pump and the compressor.

The installation of the heat pump is quick and it requires only a small amount of modification to the pipework for the pool pump. The heat pumps are also very quiet in operation. Of course it is not just a way of overcoming poor summer weather, a heat pump extends the usable period of the pool for up to nine months of the year.