Question-and-Answer Resource for the Building Energy Modeling Community
 | 1 | initial version |
A pool is indeed a basement as far as conduction through its walls is concerned. The pool water temperature is the "room" temperature setpoint, so it's normally around 80F / 27C - a bit higher than is typical for rooms. My preference for accuracy would be KIVA, but I'm pretty sure that conduction is the small part of your heating load...
The majority of the heating load will be caused by evaporation, especially when pool walls are insulated. This is true even more so for an outdoor pool. I have used the Shah method for calculating evaporation for both pool locations, then applied the evaporation load to a water heater as an EnergyPlus "OtherEquipment" object as the load. I am confident it's a reasonable approach, but am unaware of any pool studies which compare predicted performance against actual performance.
ps, E+ has a swimming pool object that I have not used, but should be worth investigating.
