Heater Chooser — Internal Preview
Will it heat it?
Will it chill it?
Set your conditions and see roughly how fast each unit moves your water — up or down — how far it can get, and what it costs to hold there.
The night shift
Chillers do their best work after dark. No sun to fight and cooler air to dump heat into means most of your temperature drop happens between midnight and sunrise. Run it overnight, coast through the afternoon.
Your cover sunbathes
Floating on the water in full sun, the cover soaks up heat all afternoon and passes most of it straight down into your pool. Wonderful in October. Working against you in July. When you're chilling, pull it off during the day.
Add shade, save money
Direct sun pours more heat into an 8-foot pool than the TempTamer can pull back out. A patio umbrella, a pergola, a shade sail or a tree gets you to your temperature noticeably faster and costs less to run — for far less than a bigger unit.
Estimates, not promises. These figures come from a heat-transfer model, not from a meter on your pool. Treat every number as a ballpark — real results swing with wind, humidity, how much sun you actually get, water level, filter condition, and how often the pool is uncovered and in use. Rates assume light wind and about 50% humidity; costs assume $0.16/kWh.
About that overnight low. The air gap between your liner and the outer tank isn't much insulation on paper, but paired with a cover it's enough that your pool doesn't crash to the overnight low. It holds onto most of the temperature it reached during the day. The numbers above show where the water settles if conditions held steady — real weather swings, and your water lags behind it by hours.
Heating vs. chilling. For heating, the inflatable cover is essential — an uncovered pool loses most of its heat to evaporation, and the cover is worth roughly 2°/hr on its own. For chilling, the opposite: shade is the lever, and the cover is usually working against you during daylight. Heat pumps must be drained and shut down at or below 32°F.