To many people, a swimming pool is a hidden oasis in the middle of this crazy world that we currently find ourselves in nowadays. But the reality is, the environment begs to differ. Swimming pools, especially older ones, are one of the biggest environmental culprits when it comes to greenhouse gasses, chemical contamination, water wastage, and many more!

Before you get us wrong and shut off your pool completely or move to a house without a pool, there are actually a number of things that can make your pool environmentally friendly!

A single-speed pool pump that’s run 8-hours a day, on an annual basis, can cost anywhere between $1,000 and $1,200 in electricity costs. That translates to a lot of greenhouse gasses being released into the atmosphere for generating this electricity. This is one of the reasons why we’re always advocating the use of energy-efficient variable speed pumps like the Water TechniX Pump Vortex Why? Well, we’ve compared the energy usage of your standard single speed pool pumps with the pump Vortex and we’ve seen almost an 80% decrease in energy use!

What does that translate to? Well, around $800-$900 in electricity savings on an annual basis! Not enough? Well, less energy consumption means that fewer greenhouse gasses are released to power your variable speed pump! Still not enough? Lower energy usage also means that you can actually run your pump for longer and still spend less! Longer pump run times equal to more water turnover and more filtration, leading to cleaner and clearer water! To know more about the difference between standard pool pump and ECO pool pump, click here.

A good pool cover can bring you closer to an ECO-Friendly pool much faster than you might imagine. A 50sqm pool can lose up to 100,000 litres of water per year! Think about that, multiply that by all of the pools in Australia and you’re talking about millions and millions of litres of water lost via evaporation every year. Now, how can a good pool cover like the ones from Daisy help bring us closer to having an ECO-Friendly pool? Well, how about preventing 95% of water loss? Sounds great right?

Aside from preventing water evaporation, a good pool cover also keeps heat in your pool, so what does this mean? Well, more heat in your pool means less runtime for pool heaters, which are notorious for consuming tons of energy. Sounds good right?

Get rid of your old gas or electric heater and switch to an energy-efficient pool heat pump if you want to turn your swimming pool into an ECO-friendly pool. Why? Well, it would take too much space (or we’ll create a separate post for it in the future) to list all of the cost comparisons for all states in Australia but let’s just take Brisbane as an example. To heat an average pool for one year in Brisbane using traditional Gas/Electric methods, it would cost just shy of $20,000 in gas/electricity bills. For a heat pump, the same pool would cost under $6,000 to heat for the entire year!

Now this is just an estimate and is in no way a true representation of what it would cost to heat your own pool because of different factors (shade, wind protection, pool covers, etc) BUT what we can confidently say is that a heat pump WILL absolutely cost less to run in the long-term.

What does having a Salt water chlorinator have to do with having an ECO-Friendly pool? Well, a lot actually if we think about chemical consumption. A good salt water chlorinator like the Water TechniX Atomic will constantly produce chlorine from the added salt in your pool water. Why is this ECO-friendly? By constantly sanitising your pool without forgetting, you’re basically reducing the use of other chemicals.

Interested in learning more about our suggested salt water chlorinators? Read more on the Water TechniX Atomic here.

Another thing that we can do to convert our pool to be more ECO-Friendly is to swap out our old incandescent or fluorescent pool lights to energy efficient LED lights. While this doesn’t sound like much, it’s just a couple of lights right? Wrong! A couple of standard pool lights running daily at 8 hours a day cost as much as a regular-sized fridge to power! LED lights on the other hand can output the same amount of lighting for a fraction of the cost.

300W Standard Incandescent Pool Light x 8hrs a day x 365 days a year = 876 KWh/year.

Now let's use an average electricity cost estimate of $0.25 cents per KWh. This would mean that you're spending $219 on pool lighting a year.

Now, let's take an equivalent LED light like the Water TechniX LED Pool Light that's available in Mr Pool Man's Online Pool shop that only consumes 25W for the same lighting output.

25W x 8hrs a day x 365 days a year = 73KWh/year

Even if we don't do the math, 73KWh/year is nowhere near 876 KWh/year. But let's do the math shall we? At $0.25 cents per KWh, that's $18.25 on lighting costs for an entire year!

While LED pool lights cost more to start with, it's longer lifespan and lower operating costs easily pay for itself in the long run, not only will you be saving money, you're doing your part for the environment as well!

Scared of swapping out your pool lights? Don't be! It's actually quite simple and it can be done in just a few minutes if you follow our easy step-by-step guide to installing LED lights here.

Apparently, being ECO-friendly actually equates to saving money right? Who would have known! Usually when people speak of ECO-friendly, it’s going above and beyond, spending more to create a lower carbon impact on the environment. When it comes to our swimming pools, it’s actually the reverse! You’re actually saving money when you go ECO-friendly! Yes, there’s the high cost of entry, but in the long run, you’re not only doing your part for the environment, but you’re also doing your part for your wallet as well!

Let's look at the savings you'll be enjoying when you invest in an ECO-friendly pool shall we?

• Pool Pump Energy Savings = At least $800 a year
  
• Water Evaporation Savings = At least $150 a year
• Pool Heating Savings = Anywhere from $2,000-$10,000 a year!
• Pool Lighting Savings = At least $180 a year
• Time and effort Saved with a salt water chlorinator = Priceless!

As we can see, the savings can be in the hundreds, if not thousands of dollars per year!

Related articles:

• Getting Back into the (Pool) Groove
• 50 Ways to Jump into a Swimming Pool Infographic