I would think a pool open to the outdoors would endure much more "hardship" than one indoors. I have friends in VA & MI who have put in Endless Pool's and like it ..... these are indoors .... one in a house the other in a shed. Some triathlete's have put these in garages. Endless might set-up a viewing of someone else's pool and you could ask a user. Just some thoughts

Endless Pools will offer a $1K incentive if you allow someone to try your own Endless Pool and they end up buying one as a result. I was asked if I was willing to do so. I'm personally on the fence as I don't want just anyone coming to my home and using my pool. Especially during the age of a pandemic. But it would depend on the person I suppose. Maybe a fellow Ironman athlete from the surrounding area. But it's a moot point for me since my driveway alone is almost a mile trek on a snowy adventure through the woods. And no one is going to make that kind of effort to try a pool in the middle of the forest up a steep mountain road. Our own friends from suburbia hardly want to come way out here to try my pool. But I'm digressing. You can contact Endless Pools and they will try and set you up with someone who has a pool and willing to share it. Just not sure how many people are willing in 2022

---

Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.

Our experience has been the opposite. Quite surprised that the electrical hasn't increased much over the ten years of ownership. My wife keeps it at 88 degrees and swims between 30-60 minutes per day. We were surprised to barely notice a difference in our electrical bill. Was yours located outdoors or didn't have a well fitting cover?

Ours is indoors but in the basement so the air temps are usually in the mid to high 60sF year round. We insulated the sides between the metal and the cedar siding. We have the regular manual cover. A better insulated cover could help but it wasn't available for some reason when I ordered my pool. I keep the pool between 77-79F (I would feel sick in 88F water). It looses 1-2 degrees per day depending on how cold it gets outside as the basement does get a tad chillier on those bitter cold winter nights. The pool uses 4 kilowatts of electricity per hour to heat and it takes about 90 minutes to heat the pool 1 degree. So per month that could be an extra 45-50 kilowatts of electricity usage. We make our own electricity from the sun all summer. In the winter we run the generator a lot to charge up our lithium-ion batteries with all the clouds and short daylight. So we don't have an electric bill. But spent a boatload of money to upgrade our system.

Like I said in a previous post, an increased electric bill will depend on where you live. There are quite a few folks on the FB group that complain about high increased electric costs from heating. Sounds like you have your pool super insulated. What kind of insulation and cover do you have? Also, what kind of pool do you have? Wondering if those big spa pools have good built-in insulation. I have the original (High Performance model)

---

Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.

Nice photos and set up. Do you mind me asking how warm do you keep your pool room? And how long does it take for your pool to go down to 87F from 88F? A couple days? Wondering if air temp in my pool room needs to be much warmer but then that requires extra energy to heat it. We do have an oil burning furnace but this year we are heating the house primarily with two wood stoves and also have a heat pump. But for those -20F mornings, we will need to heat up our upstairs offices for a bit.

I think I have the same cover. And maybe the thick insulation we used isn't as good as what EP supplies. We did the skirting and coping ourselves. The white cedar is local and milled by this young forester who likes to stop by our place from time to time

---

Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.

I suspect it could depend a lot on the average speed of the water flow

OK so wjoiner's wife keeps the pool at 88F and at that temp, you can't really exert too much energy swimming at high speeds as you would overheat. Are you saying that slower swim current speeds means the pool will cool at a slower rate compared to someone swimming against a fast current? I guess that makes sense.

---

Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.

I'm saying that the electricity bill depends A LOT on the engine that generates the flow you swim against: if you keep it at full throttle, your electrical consuption will skyrocket. I hope it's clear now

Yes that is obvious

I'm only concerned about heat loss. And it seems my pool cools down quicker than wjoiner's pool. Similar pools with same cover. I do think because I most likely swim at higher speeds in my much cooler pool, it might cool down faster. (ETA: if I want my bowl of hot soup to cool quicker, I stir it around a bit)

I swim 6 x a week 30-60 mins and my High Performance pool has a 7.5 HP motor so it uses a lot of energy (original has 5 hp). But the real electric consumption comes from heating. I'm off the electrical grid so I actually see the electric usage of all aspects of our pool. Heating drains our batteries so much quicker than running the swim current. I'm not a fast swimmer with a swim background, but I'm sure I'm swimming faster than anyone in an 88-90F pool. My paces range from 1:40 to 1:30 mins per 100 yards (slower for drills, warm up and faster for paddle/fin work).

---

Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.

A faster current would lose heat to the environment slightly faster. Though a swimmer (and, for that matter, the motor) in that current would need to work harder and generate more heat themselves. I'm not sure which of those effects is greater but neither is that large; if I had to guess I'd bet on the swimmer/motor in that scenario.

How well insulated is the room itself? Mid 60's seems cool for a room with a large volume of 78 degree water sitting in it.

---

---------------------------------------------------------
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. ~Gandalf

This is probably the main issue for my pool losing heat quicker than I'd like. And this winter it's worse because our furnace on the other side of the fireplace is not running much at all since we are heating primarily with wood this year on the first floor above the basement. And when the furnace runs it makes the basement warmer. The pool room is well insulated, but the basement has no heat zones since it was never needed. We could add a heat zone and thermostat to the pool room but then it's another project and we would have to run the furnace more and burn more oil. But then the room would be warm and then we'd run the generator less in the winter on the cloudy days. We have thought about adding a heat pump to the pool room but again, that causes more energy usage on our solar system/batteries if it's cloudy.

Today is a sunny day so I'm heating the pool and won't have to run the generator. We are charging our batteries and heating the pool at the same time thanks to the sunshine and lack of clouds

Moral of the story. Don't live off grid and buy huge expensive toys that require a lot of electricity. I wanted to have my cake and eat it too. Lots of extra effort, creativity and planning but it's still worth it to live off grid in the middle of the woods and own an Endless Pool. I'm always looking for ways to keep the pool more energy efficient.

---

Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.

A heat pump would help a bit. Though in the winter it'll only be ~2x (less, possibly) as efficient as heating as the electric heater in the pool itself. And it's not heating the pool itself.

Insulation and air sealing in that room is the place I'd look if I was trying to reduce its heat loss. I'm impressed with the PV system running a 4kw heater plus the rest of the house in December.

---

---------------------------------------------------------
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. ~Gandalf

---

Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.

have you considered swimming with a wetsuit? that would allow to keep the pool colder and save some electric energy. during covid lockdown, with pools closed, I did a lot of OWS, often in a wetsuit, and didn't lose so much fitness

If we hadn't upgraded our system, I might have done this. But it's really not terrible keeping the pool around 79F. Plus my husband has said no when I did suggest this a year ago. He hates cold water for swimming (a former college swimmer). And doesn't want to wear a wetsuit in the pool. Some EP owners who keep their pools outside in winter climates do this.

I was thinking of lowering the temps to prepare for a cold swim I did recently at the Indian Wells 70.3 where the water temp was 57F and that was very cold. In the future if I was to do a cold swim, I might lower my pool temp to acclimate better.

---

Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.