Hi,

Also in TX. You're smart...I never even thought of the higher electrical costs prior to the build! What a surprise that first bill was!

We have a 40' pool in a figure-8 shape, about 17000 gallons. In looking back, it appears that "on average" we've added 800-1000 kwh to our electrical bill per month. You can multiply that by whatever your electrical rate is to get the actual expense. There have been a few months, however, that we've added about 1500 kwh to the bill versus the previous year without the pool.

Lots of factors will influence your electric bill. We have an oversized (and uprated) 2HP pump that's costing us more money. Had we read about more energy efficient alternatives before the build, I believe we would have pressed our PB to make a change (all equipment was PB's choice). We also have a booster pump to run the Polaris cleaner.

In the first year, I also ran the pool pump more just because I was afraid of algae and didn't know how much less I could run it. I've made adjustments in the second year.

If you close your pool over the winter, you'll save on chemicals and also electricity because your pump won't be running the entire time the temperature stays below about 35 degrees.

Chemicals are quite cheap, if using the BBB method or if you have a SWCG, as we do. The pool items I've purchased this year are 2 buckets of CYA ($20 ea), muriatic acid (approx. 9 oz/day for the approx 9 months the SWCG is in use; priced at $4/gallon), approx 1# baking soda/1-2 weeks (priced at $1.90/4 lbs), bleach for the winter months when the SWCG shuts down (priced at $8 for 3 156-oz jugs), skimmer socks 2/month (priced at about $7.50 for 5), and foam tails for the Polaris 280, use 1 every month to month-and-a-half(priced at about $3.50 each). Our Pebble finish is a bit harder on those tails than a plaster pool might be.

I also buy chemical reagents to resupply my test kit, maybe $30/season, depending on what I'm about to run out of. I still test pH and chlorine (FC and CC) daily and test TA and CYA weekly, with CH and salt tests seasonally.

I end up buying a new brush head ($15) and vacuum bag ($30)each year, too.

So, I think your estimate is legit unless you have really high energy prices. That first high electric bill got me to shop around for the best price and plan for energy and saved me over $450 last year!

Good luck with the build.

I have a smaller pool 18X32 and my electric bill increased between $20 to $30 a month. My chemical bill is around $20 for acid and baking soda.

You can go on your local utility companies web site and they should have a calculator where you enter your pump info, like the watts and such. It can calculate how much your exact system will cost to run.

We run our pump here in Sacto 6hrs a day in summer and 3.5 in winter. Our bill went up about $20 a mo and our separate spa another $20. We buy acid and sometimes a little bag of shock. I think we spend more on the spa chemicals than the pool. We have a salt system. We heat with solar panels, we decided to not climb our roof and forked out the money and were really glad we did. It did not really extend the season this year but I personally swam more because I like the water on the warm side even when it is 100 outside. So that was really worth it for us. Otherwise, the kids swam without the solar no matter what.

You will have the first bill huge because it has to run 24/7 for about a week and your water bill will go up for the fill. Our 18x32 cost about $25 extra. Again you can ask the billing dept for the cost of your water.

Pools are so much more efficient these days with all the options in equipment. A pool service will cost you but if you can really do it yourself. It is like mowing the yard, may not be your favorite thing to do, but not everyone wants to pay someone to do something so easy, where others would rather pay someone because they just don't want to hassle with it.