While the leaves haven’t started falling yet, temperatures are dropping.

80 and 90 degrees days are sliding into the 70s.  Coupled with shorter days and fewer hours of warming sunlight and your pool can get downright chilly.

A frequent question around this time of year is "How can we extend the season and get more use out of our pool?"

Fortunately, you've got a number of options. Either keep the heat you have by insulating the water from heat lose, or add more heat to the pool.

Heat pumps, like the Pentair UltraTemp, are efficient and effective at heating your pool and can extend your season by up to three months in Tennessee. 

How To Heat Your Pool

1.  Liquid Solar Covers:  These are pool chemicals that help save the energy you put into the water and reduce heat loss by up to 75%.

These are invisible liquid barriers that float on the water's surface and prevent both heat loss and water evaporation.

Coverfree is one such product.  Coverfree is a monolayer polymer that maintains its insulating ability even when the water is disturbed by wind or people splashing around in the pool.

Added to the pool's skimmer to circulate throughout the pool water, Coverfree's molecules bind into an invisible blanket that both maintains heat and prevents water evaporation.

About 70% as effective as a physical solar blanket at retaining heat, you can use Coverfree throughout the pool season. It's an economical option too. One bottle will carry you through the summer to autumn's cooler days while saving you money.

2. Summer Blankets: These are physical solar blankets you float on the pool's surface.

Available in a variety of types, they can be made of UV-stabilized polyethylene, polypropylene, or vinyl.

They can also be transparent or opaque, light or dark colored, and can be a film-type layer or even textured like bubble wrap.

Summer blankets are fairly inexpensive and range in price from $100-$200 dollars depending on size and type.

Like the liquid blanket, they prevent heat loss and water evaporation. On sunny days they also work to raise the pool temperature; typically by one to three degrees but sometimes more on very sunny days.

Heating Your Pool Water

1. Electric heat pump: Typically pools are most comfortable at water temperatures between 82 and 84 degrees.  Newer electric heat pumps efficiently and effectively.

Using a heat pump in Tennessee, you can gain up to three extra months of swimming over a non-heated pool.  You can use it at to open your pool earlier in late April or early May and close it in late September or early October.

Newer electric heat pumps efficiently and effectively warm your water, maintaining it within this range.  Models like the Pentair UltraTemp heater have an Auto Set feature that monitors water temperature and turns the water circulation pump on and off as needed to maintain desired pool temperatures.

Models like the Pentair UltraTemp heater, for example, have an Auto Set feature that monitors water temperature and turns the water circulation pump on and off as needed to maintain desired pool temperatures.

Coupled with a high-efficiency motor and cooling system that meets or exceeds existing industry codes and standards, the units offer the highest efficiency rating available and are independently certified by the Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI).