Summer days aren’t over yet, but a California school has already prepped its facility for the coming cold with smart heating.

With no sign of relief from mounting energy bills it’s imperative that pool owners find ways to reduce electricity consumption when heating their pool. An electrical contractor named Douglas Ecker and his team tackled the seemingly insurmountable task of redesigning the electrical system of an anonymous California school. The school wanted a system that would heat its 300,000 gallon competition pool, in addition to heating the school’s showers.

Ecker’s solution: Use a micro-turbine about the size of a trashcan to power up the campus. The turbine was attached to a heat exchanger, which raises the pool water temperature a maximum of 2 degrees per day. It was a move towards sustainability that appeared highly improbable, given the size of the pool and the shower facilities, but it exceeded the school’s expectations.

Although it may seem new, this method is actually already a part of a growing trend among commercial and residential pool owners that dictates a more sustainable and eco-friendly swimming pool.

While “Greening” a pool may sound like a huge project and an expensive one at that, residential pool owners can begin by using pool heating technologies that are eco-friendly and energy-efficient, like solar pool heaters or solar pool covers that heat the pool water without consuming so much energy!

Do you know of any other eco-friendly ways to heat your pool? Let everybody know in the comment box below!