There are three levels of EZ Heat Solar Pool Heaters: Basic, Standard, and Deluxe.
The EZ Heat Basic is one of the least expensive solar pool heaters on the market. Using a carbon black-based solar “panel”, the system unrolls right onto your lawn or roof beside your pool. During the winter months when you close your pool, you can roll the system back up and store it until summer. Unfortunately, the only way to stop the EZ Heat Basic is to shut the pool pump off; there is no way to turn the system off without also shutting off the pump.
The EZ Heat Standard is similar to the Basic model but includes a control valve that can shut off the solar system when the pool has reached the desired temperature.
The EZ Heat Deluxe doesn’t seem to add much more value than the Standard model; the only noticeably different feature is the optional automatic electric control. Other than this optional control, which doesn’t come standard with the Deluxe model but can be installed later, there doesn’t seem to be much difference between the EZ Heat Standard and the EZ Heat Deluxe.
Like the majority of solar pool heaters, EZ Heat claims that your pool temperature should increase 5 – 10 degrees, thus extending your swimming season without costing what an electric heat pump or gas heater would cost.
Pros and Cons
EZ Heat does not offer any particularly unique features not offered by other systems, such as SmartPool’s SunHeater. Therefore, like other systems of a similar ilk, EZ Heat has comparable drawbacks. For example, the solar panels take up a good deal of space, and when placed on the lawn next to the pool, the heater can burn the grass, an unsightly side-effect. Furthermore, the rubber tends to crack and leak with time, but this is true for all panel-based solar heaters.
One unique disadvantage of EZ Heat is that it is hard to find. A quick search on Walmart.com and Amazon.com failed to turn up any results for the EZ Heat system. Just because these websites do not carry EZ Heat does not mean it’s a bad product, but when a product is hard to find, that usually means replacement parts and good customer service are also hard to find.
The advantage to the EZ Heat system is that it does what its name says it does: it is “EZ” to install and maintain, and it does function to raise the overall pool temperature 5 – 10 degrees Fahrenheit.
