South Fork lawmakers are slowly nudging the region’s ubiquitous swimming pools toward sucking up less energy, as the mechanics of mostly unused pools labor to keep water crystal clear and warm enough for finicky swimmers when they decide to take a dip.
Nearly seven years after Southampton Town adopted legislation to improve the energy efficiency of swimming pools, East Hampton Town is now considering parallel legislation to reduce the energy use of any pools built or altered after this summer.
The main energy savings would come from requiring more efficient circulation pumps and water heaters, but the legislation also points to homeowners covering pools when not in use—like at night and during the stretches between weekends when second homes are vacant—to retain heat so water heaters will run less.
“Pool pumps are a huge drain of electric consumption,” East Hampton Town Councilwoman Sylvia Overby said.
The legislation requires the upgrades to equipment for new pools and in any major reconstruction of a pool, but “I’d really hope people will just change out their pool pumps,” Ms. Overby added. She noted that PSEG offers a rebate on nearly half the cost of the new energy-efficient pool pumps, which is about $1,000, compared with $250 for the standard pumps.
The new rules in both towns require that pumps be multi-speed, so that they can run on a lower-power setting when heavy thrust is not needed. Pool heaters will also be required to have a feature that extinguishes the pilot light when the heater is not running.
Homeowners with heated pools will be required to have covers for their pools, which should be spread over the pool surface when it is not in use, to retain heat.
East Hampton lawmakers also noted that new technology in pool pumps and heaters are making them less noisy, allowing the town to loosen requirements for enclosures, which can be a fire hazard, in the new law. The board discussed the possibility of eliminating the enclosure requirement in future amendments.
27east on Jun 20, 2016