Pool Heating Overnight

[pato]

Well, after the deluge of replies to my request for information regarding costings for a replacement meter, I'm delighted to inform you that I've gone it alone and had one installed at a cost of 12 euros a month, now, all I have to do is work out how much I save over the year by having this facility, it could work out to be massive boo! boo! on my part, I'll have to wait and see how it works out, and tell the friends to swim at night only

[steve]

For some years I have used a dual rate meter and for a good chunk of the year I can keep the pool heated just by using the heat siphon overnight at the cheap rate. Since the filter pump and the heat siphon draw 6KW between them this gives a good saving against peak price. When the weather gets cold the heat loss from the pool and the reduced efficiency of the heat siphon mean that we have to run the pump during the day as well to keep the pool temperature up.

I have a washing machine and dishwasher with timers so these can be set to run during the off peak hours. The irrigation pump is also set to operate during the off peak hours.

During the winter the aircon runs after 10pm at off peak rates too.

If you can schedule the use of a lot of electricity in the off peak hours the dual rate meter makes economic sense. If you can’t it will probably not save much if anything.