[Greenbuilding] pool heating
RT
ArchiLogic at yahoo.ca
Mon Nov 8 09:05:14 CST 2010
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).
--
=== * ===
Rob Tom
Kanata, Ontario, Canada
< A r c h i L o g i c at Y a h o o dot c a >
manually winnow the chaff from my edress if you hit "reply"
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