Effective October 1, 2008, all new pools and ALL EXISTING POOLS NEEDING HEATER REPLACEMENT in the Town of Southampton, NY will require the installation of a solar heating system as their primary heat source.  Conventional pool heaters will be allowed ONLY as a secondary supplemental system. Existing pool heaters cannot be replaced in kind; they must also use a solar heating system as the primary heat source. As an industry, we agree with the intent of the law, but we are lobbying to make more reasonable changes to it in ways that are MORE energy efficient and less costly to the consumer.  In addition, we are working to ensure that the language of the law is concise enough, so that no discrepancies, such as the ones present in the current proposed law may arise in the implementation of the law. 

Please read below for our industry’s stance on the legal, economic and functional issues of this proposed law, and our suggestions for more energy efficient alternatives than the solar heating requirement of this proposed law.

Issues with Legality and Economic Impact of Proposed Law:

The proposed code allows the Building Inspector to make a determination to grant a waiver from the solar heating requirement without clear and concise guidelines upon which he must base his decision. 

There is no mention of a cost benefit analysis having been performed to gauge the economic impact of these requirements. 

Pool heaters are considered appliances. As such, their energy efficiency is regulated by Federal law calling into question whether the Town can preempt Federal guidelines without first obtaining a waiver from the Department of Energy, which does not appear to have been done here.

Functionality Issues of Language (Please click on any of the following bullet points for more information on our industry’s issues and questions with the following):

Does the new law include solar heating systems for spas and hot tubs? 

How does a homeowner who wants to install a solar system comply with existing building codes in Southampton, such as clearance and sight requirements? 

What of the situation where the roof is an older roof? 

Issues with “back-up” systems and requiring that it meets the highest energy efficiency rating.

Issues with requiring a time clock to be installed on the pump set to run in the off-peak electric demand period. 

Issues with pool filtering systems with a two horsepower pump or more to be equipped with variable speed pumps. 

In addition, solar heaters may be counter-productive.

Suggested Alternatives to Solar Heating Requirement:

There are numerous ways using current technology and building standards that will result in far more energy savings than the current misguided belief that solar energy is the only option (Please click on any of the following bullet points for more information on our industry’s issues and questions with the following).

Require the use of solar blankets on all pools that are heated by solar or non-solar energy.

Require the use of smaller, higher efficiency pumps. 

Require intelligent plumbing designs for the pool. 

Allow for a property tax savings as an incentive to install a solar heating system, new plumbing systems for existing pools to reduce the hydraulic resistance and retrofitting smaller higher efficiency pumps.