4 Easy Ways to Quickly Heat a Kiddie Pool

With summer approaching, what’s more fun than spending a warm sunny day in the pool? Both kids and adults enjoy hanging around and splashing about in swimming pools. It’s both fun and refreshing!

As adults, we’re able to stay in a cool pool for long, making the most out of those extra hours of splashing fun. Children, however, might not be able to do so. Soon you’ll have to face their blue shivering lips and put an end to today’s summer pool fun.

Alternately, you can go through this post and get to know all the techniques with regard to how to heat a kiddie pool. From filling the pool with hot water to using solar blankets to installing an electric heater, there are several ways to keep a kiddie pool warm.

Let’s jump right into it!

Method #1: Fill It with Hot Water

This is the most straightforward way to fill a pool with hot water. You probably know how to go about it, but let’s highlight all the ways you can fill your little one’s pool with warm water.

Use a Kettle

This is ideal for small kiddie pools since they won’t require numerous fills of the kettle. Although a favorite among parents for heating their kid’s pools, you shouldn’t frequently do this as it might damage your kettle faster.

You need to make sure your children know not to get into the water before you check if it’s the right temperature to avoid them being burned.

This method is not suitable for filling medium-sized or big pools. In addition to being a nuisance filling large pools using boiled water from the kettle, you might risk your kids not feeling like swimming anymore by the time you’re done.

Use an Immersion Heater

Faster and more powerful than the kettle, if you own an immersion heater, you may be tempted to use it to heat your pool, and you can!

Avoid putting the immersion heater directly into the pool, as this can damage the padding of the pool. Instead, you should use a stainless steel bucket where you can heat the water using the immersion heater. Then, pour the water into the pool.

Immersion heaters aren’t certified pool heaters, so you should only use them if you know how and after carefully reading the manufacturer’s instructions.

Use a Hose

The perfect way to use a hose to heat up your kiddie pool is to get access to hot water hookups. They’re generally located behind your washing machine or dryer, but you can install an extra one in the garden for this purpose.

You can also plug your hose into the bathroom or kitchen faucet as they’re easily accessible.

Plug the hose into the hot water access and put the other end of the hose into the pool. You might want to add another hose plugged into the cold water faucet to balance the hot water.

This technique comes in handy when filling medium-sized or slightly larger pools. Just keep in mind that you usually have a limited supply of hot water every day.

Another less effective but easier and safer technique is buying a black garden hose. The black color would absorb sunlight and warm the water inside.

You should spread the hose in the sunlight to increase the surface area exposed to the sun. Although easier, this technique would only be useful when the sun’s out.

Method #2: Use Sunlight to Heat the Pool Water

Sunlight is our natural source of warmth, so we might as well use it to warm our pool water. To do this, you need to keep the pool in a sunny place for a few hours to give the sun enough time to warm the water.

If you don’t mind the wait, here are the techniques you can use to make the best of sunny days:

Use Solar Blankets

Inexpensive and low on maintenance costs, solar blankets are a good investment. They’re sheets of insulating plastic that float on the water’s surface, capture sunlight, and then conduct it to the underlying water to warm it faster.

Solar blankets also help prevent water from evaporating, keeping it warm for longer. Consider using them to cover your pool when you’re not using it.

If you’re using solar blankets to cover and heat a large pool, removing or laying them on can be troublesome. To solve this, you can use many solar rings instead, or you can invest in a solar cover reel.

The solar liquid pool cover is another way to easily prevent evaporation, but it’s less effective than solar blankets and it won’t conduct the sun’s rays to heat the pool faster.

Use a Reflective Cover

These are shiny sheets that you can set up around the pool on a sunny day. They would reflect the sun’s rays onto the water in the pool and warm it up.

If you’re not keen on shopping for a few of those, you can try using any sheets made of reflective material that you have around the house.

Use a Solar Heater Mat

These are large mats that you’ll spread in a sunny place. They would capture the sunlight and use it to heat the water.

You’d also need to connect the solar heater mat to a pump in the pool that would help mix the warm water in the pool.

Use a Reflective Enclosure

You can buy or set up a compartment around your kid’s pool. You should drape reflective sheets on the enclosure. This would concentrate the sun’s rays on the pool’s water throughout the day and warm it.

Just make sure that once your kid is ready to get into the pool, you remove the reflective sheets and lather your little one in sunscreen to prevent sunburns.

Method #3: Use a Gas or Electric Heater

We’ve saved the most powerful and most expensive techniques for last. These are probably best considered for larger size pools.

Use a Natural Gas Heater

If you live in a place with predominantly cold temperatures, then using a gas heater is your best bet for enjoying a warm pool. These heaters burn natural gas and use the generated heat to warm the water.

They’re guaranteed to quickly warm the water to the temperature you want irrespective of the outside temperature.

Being this powerful, they’re expensive to install and can result in a costly monthly gas bill.

Use an Electric Heater

Electric heaters have a heating element that is used to heat the pool water. These can be great in keeping the water warm through all seasons of the year.

Powerful as they are, installing and maintaining these heaters can be expensive —think electric bills.

Use a Heat Pump

Similar to an electric heater, a heat pump utilizes electricity to warm your pool. However, a heat pump does not have a heating element, but instead removes heat from the air in order to heat the water.

This is a very good option if the outside temperatures are warm, but become less useful as temperatures fall below 50℉.

While heat pumps can be pricey to install, they are significantly more energy efficient than gas or electric heaters.

Method #4: Combine Techniques for Maximum Benefit

Using more than one technique can help you heat your pool faster and maintain its temperature for longer periods.

You can combine a gas or electric heater with a solar insulation blanket. This combination would help you enjoy the hot water from your heater for a longer time and hence decrease the number of times you need to use the heater, saving you money.

You can also combine filling your pool with hot water using an immersion heater or a water hose with solar heater mats, solar blankets, or reflective covers/enclosures.

There are many combinations that you can opt for. It all boils down to your setup and budget.

What Is the Ideal Temperature for a Kiddie Pool?

After we’ve discussed all the ways that you can heat up your kids’ pool, you’re probably thinking about the ideal temperature you should be aiming for.

Generally, we feel best in a temperature 10 degrees below that of our body. Lower temperatures would make us feel cold and can risk hypothermia due to increased heat loss.

However, with our children and babies being less able to maintain their body temperature, the recommended temperature is 85-90℉. Young children will often find more comfort on the warmer end of this range, while older kids can tolerate the cooler temperatures better.

You can check the pool’s temperature using special digital thermometers.

While kids may enjoy the warmer water temperatures, this may also attract mosquitoes, especially if the water is stagnant. Fortunately, there are simple ways to keep those mosquitoes out of the kiddie pool.

Final Takeaway

There’s a wide variety of pool heating options. Choosing the perfect technique depends on the size of the pool, the available resources, and the weather.

You shouldn’t be limited to using only one technique. Combining two different techniques can give you the best of both worlds.

Now that you’ve gone through our article comparing all the techniques available to heat a kiddie pool, you’re ready to decide on the techniques that will suit you best and offer your child months of everyday fun splashing in warm water.

While keeping the kiddie pool warm is important for the kids’ enjoyment, don’t forget to keep it clean! There are many natural methods to keep it clean to ensure safety for everyone.

Happy Swimming!