USVI-On-Line

We are considering heating our villa pool?

Pole questions: Does it make a difference in the choice of the villa your rent?? Heated Vs Not Heated??? Most pools from Dec To March are not that confortable on STJ.

We have a great pool at Into the Mystic
But in the winter IT IS SOMETIMES COLD & YOU CAN'T STAY IN IT FOR LONG. Has great sun and lush plants but sometimes cold!

It not cheap to do or heat, cost to install, power, etc Nothing is cheap on STJ a solar blanket helps, but it not great

Please help!! With advise and comments! Heading down May 15th If the pole says it is important, we going to heat the Pool

don't know that I would pick a villa for that reason. but .. interestingly enough I was looking at a rental place in California recently and it was noted that the pool could be heated in winter months @ the cost of $75/day to the renter. Completely optional of course.

hmmmm--from what i have seen here many people like the option of a heated pool in the winter months--
for us it doesn't matter much--we primarily get a house with a pool if we have our kids with us and they learned to swim in Maine....so the cool water doesn't bother them (and I can tolerate it too)

i think that it sort of depends on the orientation of the pool to the sun and how much light /heat it gets--
i imagine it would be very expensive to heat a pool there ---

Hi Ted. We have a place across the harbor from you on Seagrape Hill. We are in a sunny location all day, so the pool is usable year-round. You know those WAPA bills, so put that into consideration before you decide to heat the pool. You may want to consider installing a solar panel. They have a picture of one that they sell at St. John Hardware. You may want to research them online to get the best price. I bet you will save lots of money going solar - that is if you have a pretty sunny spot to install the panel.

We really enjoyed your House Hunters International episode. Your place looks wonderful. My relatives stayed there when it was Banana Wind, and it's come a long way since then.

Good luck with your search!

Seagrape

If I had a choice between heated pool and not I would pay maybe 10% premium for heat.

A pool on an island with no naturally occurring fresh water is a huge!! luxury to start with -- a heated pool in the Caribbean on an island with NO FRESH WATER is obnoxious and with the WAPA KWH cost, stupid as well.
Easily an extra $100 a day would be fair.

we were there in February in a west-facing villa- tons of sun- but the pool was COLD (we're from Texas so we're kind of wimpy). I would definitely not be opposed to a surcharge for a heated pool to help defray the costs. We didn't use ours much when there because of the temp and it was a bummer....

Exit Zero
Our pool has some unique conservation features, It has its own cistern / tanks.
The pool and tanks collect rain water and all of the pool’s overflow. When more water is needed for the pool it has a pump that returns the water to the pool. It also has a pump to supply the drip irrigation system for the landscaping. It keeps run- off from going down the hillside and into Coral Bay and turning it brown!
The pool heater would be solar powered, it will still use some power for the small circulation pump.
I live in a off-grid solar powered home in the states, that collect all of the rain water!
I know how to conserve! Just trying to enjoy the pool !

Ted

tedprosser wrote:I live in a off-grid solar powered home in the states, that collect all of the rain water!
I know how to conserve! Just trying to enjoy the pool !

Ted

Ted, I would have thought that would be difficult to do in Asheville. Can you give me some detail? What type of solar system do you have? Manufacturer? Approx size of home? Age of system? Annual maintenance cost? Original cost of system incl installation?

I understand if you don't want to divulge some of that. I'm a consultant in the energy industry so I'm naturally curious about some of that. I have a couple of small utilities as clients who would love to do something to encourage their customers to go green rather than building another power plant. Problem is that central station generating is still the cheapest way to go.

If you would prefer private message or to take it up on the off topic board that's fine too. Like I say, I'm just curious because of my line of work.

Dave

Our system is about 8kw, with two large battery banks for storage. It is less than two years old. It make lots of power in the NC mountains. We do have a generator that is used some in the Winter, when we have a bigger demand and load, mostly because it is solar heated also, and the circulaton pumps use more power at a time when you are makeing less power, the winter and late at night.It cost very little to run, water for the battery, and the $200-300 per winter for the fuel for the back up generator. PV panels are Kyocera 135 watt Modules.

It was not cheap, $85K plus, but with a 30% fed tax credit and a 35% state credit, that cost comes down quickly.

Although this is my 3rd solar home, we really had no other choice, we live on an island in the middle of a lake, no power or well, all pv and rain water

Ted

Thanks, Ted. Very cool. I would love to go off the grid personally. $85k for 8kW is expensive, but if this country could ever get off the need for fossil fuel it would free up all kinds of money (not just the cost of the fuel, but military spending in the middle east and elsewhere) that could be used for something else.

OK, back to pics of the islands and other exciting topics!

tedprosser wrote:Exit Zero
Our pool has some unique conservation features, It has its own cistern / tanks.
The pool and tanks collect rain water and all of the pool�s overflow. When more water is needed for the pool it has a pump that returns the water to the pool. It also has a pump to supply the drip irrigation system for the landscaping. It keeps run- off from going down the hillside and into Coral Bay and turning it brown!
I know how to conserve! Just trying to enjoy the pool !

Ted

You have a rental villa with 3 toilets, an outdoor shower, plus 2 indoor showers, a wet bar, 1.5 kitchen sinks, washing machine, a hot tub or spa, maybe a dish washer, and a swimming pool -- do you mean you do not have to have a water truck deliver water?? You don't have to buy water?? Your conservation and your rental guests conservation allow your villa to exist and function on rainwater?? I applaud your design if that is the case.

Just curious - at what temp does a pool become unenjoyable for most people? I'd think that most pools in STJ would hover near 80, at least, if they are in the sun - even in the winter. Is that not the case?

Hello Ted, I have never rented a house with a heated pool on St. John. I don't think this is a feature I would be necessarily looking for, but I can understand its appeal.

If you do decide to heat it, I believe that this is defintely an amenity you could charge extra for. Make it optional, as not everyone would want a heated pool. I pay extra to have the heat turned on in the Florida pool homes I rent when we go to Disney in the winter--I think it's around $200/week.

It would also be nice if the renter could have some control over what temperature the pool is heated to. In Florida for some reason the default heat setting is 100 degrees!! That's WAY too hot and the heat settings are locked. I have to arrange in advance to have it set to something more reasonable like 80.

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