How much to run an electric pool heater? KW / hour price calculator

Hi all. Some of you may remember, we bought a pretty big pool for the kids at the start of the summer hols. Well as you probably know ever since that purchase the weather's been pretty bad. In fact, so bad, they've hardly been in it.

Soooooo.... to throw good money after bad, we've just bought a heater for said pool.

The thing is, does anybody have any idea it costs to run the pool heater per hour if it's a 3kw heater? I know prices vary between suppliers, but a ball park would be good.

There must be a simple way of working it out, but I haven't got a clue where to start.

Betcha there's a clever Frugaller out there that knows?!

How much heat is 3KW? 1 Kilowatt is approximately the heat given off by a one-bar electric heater, so 3KW is approximately equal to a three bar electric fire.

Are they expensive to run? To calculate the cost of running your heater, just look at your electricty bill - take the price per kilowatt hour (kwh), and multiply it by 3 (ie 3kw for the heater) - that is the price you will pay per hour for heating your pool. You can make significant savings by running the heater when yout kwh price is at its lowest (usually during the night). A simply time-switch mains adaptor costing a few pounds can be set up to automatically switch on the heater during the cheapest periods. EXAMPLE: say you pay 4p per Kwh, the price you pay for using your pool heater is 12p per hour. If you run the heater for 4 hours a day, that makes 44 pence per day.

Sorry. With the launch of the new site, I've been up to my eyes in it.

Many thanks for that explaination Tink. Even I can understand that.

The heater is now heating.

(Kids said thanks too! )