Heaters are the one piece of pool equipment most techs ignore until it fails. By then you're looking at a 3–5 day no-heat service call and, often, a component replacement that could have been a cleaning a year ago. Five minutes per visit and one annual service keeps a heater alive for 10–15 years instead of 6–8.
Every service visit: the 90-second heater walk-around
- Look for drips or stains under the heater and at the inlet/outlet unions. Dried green or white salt residue = small leak, intermittent.
- Listen when it fires. A change in flame noise (on gas) or compressor sound (on heat pump) is the first sign of trouble.
- Check the display for fault codes. Every modern heater logs its last few faults even if the pool is currently running fine.
- Open the top on a gas heater and check for insect nests (wasps, lovebugs) in the cabinet. Florida pests love the warmth; a nest in the burner tray is a no-start fault waiting to happen.
- Check the bond wire at the lug. Corrosion here is a safety risk and a common code deficiency on older installs.
Quarterly: the deeper pass
- Gas heater burner tray— vacuum out spider webs, dust, and debris. Dirty burners run rich, sooty, and fail to sustain a flame in gusty weather.
- Heat pump evaporator coil— hose off the aluminum fins (gently) to clear pollen, grass clippings, and dog hair. A restricted coil is the #1 cause of heat-pump capacity loss.
- Condensate drainon the heat pump — clear the drip trough and confirm water is exiting, not pooling under the unit.
- Cabinet screws— any rust-fused screws get a drop of penetrating oil so they come out when you need them to, not after they're stuck.
Annual: professional service
- Heat exchanger cleaning. Hard-water Florida pools scale the inside of the tube bundle. At about year 3–5, capacity drops noticeably and the fix is a descale — muriatic-acid flush or professional exchanger removal and soak.
- Gas pressure test at the inlet. Confirms the heater is seeing the BTU it needs. Low inlet pressure is the most common cause of “it used to heat faster” complaints.
- Combustion analysis (optional but diagnostic) — reads oxygen, CO, and flue temp. Flags a heater running rich, fouled, or mis-oriented before it fails.
- Thermistor/thermostat calibration check against a reference thermometer.
- Amp draw on heat-pump compressor vs. nameplate. Rising amp draw is the earliest signal of compressor wear.
The three replacement items on a Florida service schedule
- Pressure switch(gas heaters): 5–7 years. Fails as intermittent ignition lockouts.
- Header gaskets(gas heat exchanger): 7–10 years. Fails as visible water drip.
- Capacitor(heat-pump compressor): 6–8 years. Fails as “won't start” call, often on a hot summer morning.
The homeowners whose heaters die at year 7 and the ones whose heaters last to year 14 are usually running identical hardware. The difference is ten minutes a quarter and one proper service annually.