Above ground pool heaters are an effective way to keep your pool warm all year round, and to make sure that you have warm swimming pool water in the evenings. There are several different technologies that you can use, and in this article I'm going to be telling you about them, discussing the relative merits and drawbacks. Finally I'm going to show you where you can get the equipment you need at the lowest price.

The first thing you should do to keep your pool warm is conserve the heat that is already in it. Pools loose up to 75% of their heat from the surface through evaporation and winds blowing across the pool. Reducing this heat loss can halve your heating costs. The best way to do this is with the pool cover, or a solar blankets. The pool cover simply covers the pool and blocks heat from being lost. The solar blanket take this one step further. It allows sunlight shining through the blanket into the pool, but it prevents the heat from the sunlight from coming out again. It's like a greenhouse for your pool, and allows your pool to actually raise in temperature when the sunlight shining directly on it.

The first type of above ground pool heater, and the cheapest to install, is a gas powered system. These heaters use propane to generate heat, and as they are very simple they do not cost much money to buy or install. However, propane is a relatively expensive method of heating a pool, and can be so expensive that most people consider it to be an unviable system. You could be looking at spending $3000 a year to heat your pool in a relatively hot climate like Florida. Obviously it's much more expensive in colder climes.

The next option is an above ground pool heat pump. This is a heater that works by sucking heat out of the surrounding air. The air is compressed, generating heat. Heat exchange systems swap the heat from the air to the water. The cold air is then evacuated and new air is drawn in. This constant cycle results in the air getting colder but the water getting hotter. As the air is circulated by the winds you don't notice any appreciable drop in air temperature, but the pool does warm up.

This is quite an energy efficient way of heating your pool because you are using naturally occurring heat. It does require electricity to work, so it's not in an entirely free energy source, but is very much cheaper than propane. When used together with the pool blanket it can save a lot of money. Installing one of these systems is much more expensive than installing a propane based system because it is much more complicated, but this technology will pay for itself in a few years because of the much lower running costs.

Solar powered above ground pool heaters use solar panels to collect heat. The solar panels are not photoelectric panels, which generate electricity, they are simple black panels that water can run inside. The sun's light shines and is absorbed. The energy is converted into heat which the water picks up. The flow of water is powered by the pools pump and controlled by a digital control panel, which works on a timer and also operates to raise the temperature to a desired setting. It prevents the pool from overheating, and keeps the heating system running as long as it takes to raise the temperature to the desired level. Some systems allow you to divert the heat to a water tank so you can also gain hot water for your household once the pool has reached its desired temperature. This is a nice extra, but is not required.

The solar power system is expensive to buy and install compared to a gas powered system, but the energy is free and the operational costs virtually nothing. Because of this, the system pays for itself in as little as two years.

Some people use a combination of heating systems. The reason for this is that during the coldest months of the year, the solar energy can be low, and the heat in the surrounding air can be quite low as well, so both the heat pump system and the solar power system can find that they don't generate enough heat on their own to raise the pool temperature. For this reason, a gas powered system is often installed right after these heating systems in the circulation system, and is set to operate only way the temperature generated by the solar system or heat pump is not high enough. In this case, your gas bills are still very low because most of the time the gas heater it is not operating, but when the pool temperature goes too low, the gas heater kicks in and gives a much-needed boost.

As you can see, there are a number of different options facing you when you get an aboveground pool heater, and your own choice will depend on your circumstances and preferences. However, there is one site that provides you with all the different equipment you need to implement any of these heating systems. It guarantees the lowest possible prices for all the equipment on sale. If you can find a lower price anywhere, they will undercut the price by 10%.

Click here to see the sites that I recommend you use.

For more information about pool heaters you can have a look at this swimming pool heater site.