Just curious...why do so few villas have heated pools? I've read many reviews that mention winter visits and pools being too cold to enjoy. Unless these people are just utter wimps, I'd think a heated pool would be very desirable--plus the villa's owner could pass along the heating costs to the renter. What am I missing?

probably not, the water temp rarely gets below 75, which to me is wet suit temperature

Ah, to me, I wouldn't even think of getting into my pool here at home, if it was 75!! <img src="http://www.traveltalkonline.com/forums/images/graemlins/Laugh.gif" alt="" /> Depends on where you live, I guess! Regardless, pool heaters cost a LOT of money to run, especially in the islands, where energy is tres' expensive.

There's a villa we've stayed at a few times. A few years ago the pool was cold. Last time, the owner had gotten a bubble wrap type of solar cover. Made a world of difference.

Maybe pool heaters use too much gas to be practical with bottle gas deliveries as opposed to street gas?

But given the strong sun, the solar cover seems to be a great option there.

We surrendered and put in a heater two years ago. It really isn't necessary, but we want our guests to have every aminity. We also have AC throughout the house for the same reason.
Both are very expensive to run. Best to be judicious wherever you stay.

The solar bubble thing sounds like a good solution!

We had one on our pool in Virginia. It did help, however you do need to have it on a roll to be able to roll it up. And they are not very attractive to look at, so whenever the villa was occupied, people would probably leave it off all the time.

Tropical sun exposure - not surprisingly - makes a huge difference in unheated pool water temperature. Our pool at Morningside Villa on St. John was exposed to direct sunlight all day long, and the temperature never fell below 85 degrees. Pools with significant shade will cool quickly at night, and don't have time to recover during the day.

By sad contrast, our pool here in Michigan gets direct sun for approximately 3/4 of the day, and it still costs me almost $400/mo to keep it at 85!

Tropics is better.

I think Adagio has a heater....

I know what you're saying but a key difference is villa pools are usually small. I think the one I am talking about was 9*12? It was a 2 minute job to fold it over itself a few times and then drag it to the side, then reverse when done. Once we saw the difference it made, we made sure it was on there when we weren't in the pool.

We use solar heating system for our pool in Ontario. http://www.aesbvi.com/hotwater/poolheat.html The system uses no energy and would keep a pool very warm if there is lots of sunshine. Water is circulated up to black panels on our roof. The sun heats the roof.

HI Macaroni - that's right - we put it in a few years ago as the sun was lower on the horizon during the winter months and the combination of the trade winds and less direct sun made it seem colder that it really was -the heater is a heat pump powered by electricity and not gas. cheers Brian