If you have booked a Florida villa to rent from October to April with pool heating and want to have a nice warm pool we recommend you put the pool cover on when ever you are not swimming.
When ever the air temperature is below the temperature of the pool (85F on average) you are losing heat so it’s essential you put the pool cover on especially in January and February when the average day temp is 65F-70F and at night is can get in to the 30’s.
Most pool pumps run from 8-9am until 5-6pm and the pool heater will only run when the pump is on so over night the pool blanket is the only thing to stop you losing all the heat and it normally does a pretty good job but make sure it’s on properly.
One other thing to note is that most pool heaters are electric and not gas so they don’t have a flame. They take heat from the air outside (also known as heat exchangers) so if it’s very cold outside (below 50F) they may not produce any heat even if it runs all day.
So on cold days it’s even more important to keep the pool blanket/cover on when ever you are not swimming.
For Orlando Villas with a spa the process is the same so if you are trying to use it on a cold day/night it may take a long time to get hot if at all.
VR360 | Florida Vacation Rentals 
We had people in our villa in 2010 Christmas that insisted our pool was faulty as it wasn’t warm enough for them. It was in the 30-40s outside that year.
They said it should have been hot. Couldn’t get through to them about outside heat
I have spoken to lots of people over the years who rent villas in Florida and most don’t realise that it gets very cold. During the winter (Jan/Feb) the average daily temp is around 70F and higher but it could also be 45F it depends whats going on up North, if they have heavy snow and cold air it means we will probably get some of that now and again. Yesterday and today are around 75F but last week it was 50F during the day and 29F at night so very cold.
It’s very difficult to heat 10,000 gallons of water to 85F when the air temp is only 50F. I think in the winter (Jan / Feb) guests should be told how a pool heater works and then if it gets cold they would understand why the pool is not as warm as it should be.
There are a few Orlando villa communities that have natural gas pool heaters which are not effected by this but not many.