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It's a fact - most swimming pools are never at optimal swimming temperatures, and while much of the time the cold shock of the water can be an exciting part of the fun, it's also great to have the option to warm things up a little. This is where swimming pool heat pumps come in - they're an opportunity to invest in your home while adding to the fun of family memories, as the kids will never want to leave the healthy fun of the water behind.

Now, to be clear - swimming pool heat pumps don't make their own heat. Rather, they use electricity to catch heat and shift it from one place to another. The swimming pool's water is circulated through the pump, and as it does so the heat pump's fan draws in outside air, sucking it onto an evaporator coil, which holds a quantity of liquid refrigerant. This refrigerant substance becomes a warm gas when it absorbs the air, passing through a compressor and growing hotter as it's squeezed more tightly in its container.

It then passes through a condenser, where the gas's heat is transmitted from it's pipe housing into the water. Being cooled by the surrounding water, the gas returns to liquid form, and runs back to the evaporator coil so that the process can repeat itself. The heated water goes back into the pool, disperses through it and so, logically, increases the net temperature of the pool.

What this means is that swimming pool heat pumps work better than other kinds of inground heaters for pools, like the kinds that require solar panels. This is because, while they might initially cost a bit more than other heating solutions, their cost is less when seen in the long term because they are less effected by things like weather changes and the absence of sunlight. They're also likely to last a lot longer than such solutions, as they've been refined in their design over many years, while most other in ground pool heaters are in their technological infancy.

Of course, the way that I've described heat pumps for swimming pools above is a gross oversimplification designed to illustrate the details of the process for the layperson. The real-life complexity of a swimming pool heat pump means that you really don't want anyone but a fully qualified pool professional (yes, believe me, there are such things) working with them. Think about it - any device reliant on hot gas is simply not going to be safely adjusted by amateur hands. Ask your family and friends if they've needed to hire such a person in the past, and if there's anyone that they can recommend. Proper installation will optimize the functionality of the heat pump, and ultimately save you a good sum of money on your electric bills.

Even then, the prospect of a swimming pool heat pump running for hours a day is one that most people would find a little financially intimidating. You need to establish, prior to any installation, whether you're earning enough to pay the deficit your kids might create running the pump unchecked - the bills could start stacking up pretty quickly. One thing you may want to do is take a look at pump timers, that will switch the pump off if it runs for too long.