[Greenbuilding] pool heating

[stephen at thermotechfiberglass.com]

About 20+ years ago i worked for a maker of solar pool heaters.

Effective pool heating needs a few of things

CONSERVATION
Any thermal blanket is way more cost effective than any heater - solar or
otherwise.

AREA
We used to suggest 50% of the pool surface area in unshaded south facing
collectors - even more if not south facing....

FLOW
Any thermal collector is more efficient (loses less heat to the air) the
cooler it runs. This is ESPECIALLY true of the unglazed panels used for
pool heating. 
If you are going to eschew a commerical solution, don't use a single coil
of tubing. Use multiple coils in parallel. Otherwise your home made
collectors will dribble impressively warm water at a rate that will never
heat the pool. 
I would not put the coils on top of the pool - this stealing passive solar
heat from the pool. Put the coils on a roof. 

Commercial pool heating systems are typically very cost effective - even
when compared to natural gas heaters.


good luck
ST

PS
I always wondered how Costco undercut dealers by so much, now i know.....







 On Mon, 08 Nov 2010 10:05:14 -0500, RT <ArchiLogic at yahoo.ca> wrote:
> On Mon, 08 Nov 2010 08:23:23 -0500, Gi Broucke <gbroucke at gmail.com>
wrote:
> 
>> I thought of attaching a polyethylene pipe of 100m or so to my pump  
>> outlet and allow it to float on top of the pool in a spiral - with a  
>> weight attached to the outlet.
> 
> If one has a look at an aerial photograph of many of the neighbourhoods
in
> 
> Ottawa-Gatineau, it's quite surprising (to me anyway) to see that even
in  
> the urban area where the houses are cheek by jowl, there's a swimming
pool
> 
> in almost every backyard and this being MooseLand, you may be assured
that
> 
> every one of them is being heated.
> 
> A common strategy for DIYers is to simply put a 30m-or-so coil of iPEX  
> pipe on the (usually asphalt)shingled roof of
> either the house or garage or shed as a solar heater.
> 
> One of my neighbour's wives, appalled by the energy costs for the pool  
> heater went to Costco and bought one of their "solar pool heaters" that 

> looks sort of like those ribbed vinyl hall runners you used to see, with

> dinkly little water channels in the little ribs.
> 
> My neighbour, who isn't really the DIY sort but makes valiant attempts
at  
> it nonetheless, dutifully hooked hp the Costco "solar heater" to the  
> pool's plumbing, and laying the collector on an equator facing slope.
> 
> I think that it was about the next day, they returned home to find that 

> one of the plastic fittings on the end of the hall runner had burst ... 

> and the hall runner having been placed lower than the above-ground pool,

> resulted in all of the water draining out of the pool and into the soil 

> adjacent to the house foundation.
> 
> D'oh!
> 
> Neighbour pulled out the caulking gun and some PL ### construction  
> adhesive, gunked-up the re-assembled fitting, bought another tanker  
> truck-full of water ... and the next day, after the plumbing fitting
burst
> 
> again, repeated the process.
> 
> Eventually, with clods of the repeated construction adhesive
applications  
> and additions of gear clamps, the leaking was slowed to a trickle
instead  
> of catastrophic bursts.
> 
> But then one day during a windy spell, the wind picked up the hall
runner,
> 
> flipped it over and the "fixed" fitting burst again.
> 
> Fortunately, winter is making signs of coming round so the pool is
"closed
> 
> for the season".
> 
> Whereas yachts are big vessels into which one pours an endless stream of

> cash, swimming pools are big holes into which one pours an endless
stream  
> of resources (including cash).