aboveground pool heating ideas

[Bassman360]

Hi.
Northeastern Pennsylvania pool season is almost entirely a "grit your teath to battle the cold" experience.
Any suggestions?
15'x 48" Intex metal frame with standard filtration and saltwater chlorine generator.

 

[PAGirl]

The only thing that helped me was moving it to a sunnier spot and making sure I put the cover on at night. Unfortunately, it seems as though June isn't a consistently swim able month in PA. Our water has only hit 80 one or two days so far.

 

[ps0303]

If you have gas at your house, install a gas pool heater.

 

[CJadamec]

If you don't have gas, propane is an option but expensive. A heat pump is another option upfront costs aren't cheap. Then there is solar collectors which can very a ton in cost depending on which route you go and they tend to take up a lot of space. Simply covering your pool with a solar cover can help too. There are a lot of ways to do it mostly it comes down to your budget and expectations.

 

[pooldv]

In order of least costly to operate to most costly

Solar cover
Solar panels
Heat pump, toss up with nat gas, depends how you intend to heat
Natural gas heater, toss up up with heat pump, depends how you intend to heat
propane heater
electric resistance heater

 

[Bassman360]

Thanks
Already use a solar cover, helps a little.
Money is an issue.
I have experimented with plumbing in the radiator out of an '04 Lincoln Navigator facing the sun. Didn't help much even with a propane heater under it. Eventually had to take it out of the loop because it robbed flow to the chlorine generator.
Was intrigued with a post reference to a wood fire heater. Any comments on that?

- - - Updated - - -

BWOI
no natural gas hook up available

 

[CJadamec]

There are wood fired pools. Unless you have a lot of spare pipe and awoodstove kicking around I wouldnt say it's practical. People have had luck with large coils of black well pipe laying out in the sun. It's not pretty to look at but it can be effective.

 

[Bassman360]

hum.
Ok, I have a couple of wood stoves, one conventional style not yet hooked up, one in the garage (2x50 gallon drums).
Not sure what you mean by coils of black pipe but I can say that I don't get very much sun in my back yard (tree cover and such).
Can you elaborate on a stove hook up? I'm very handy and inventive but can't picture it without burning down the pool.
XD
Thanks

 

[CJadamec]

A wood stove heater would work much the same way an outdoor wood boiler is built. The biggest problem off the bat is heat exchanger material. Idealy for the wood stove you would have welded steel pipe in the fire box. But that presents a problem with water chemistry as it would put lots of nasty rusty water in your pool. The next best bet is a coil of copper tubing in the firebox. With copper you have to use a single length of tubing as any soldered joints would melt in the fire. 1 inch copper tubing isn't cheap but it isn't a show stopper. You will introduce some copper into your water but so do all the people here with copper heat exchangers on their gas heaters. So you said you have a 55 gal drum so your best details would be to make that a wood stove and get as many feet of coiled copper inside the drum. Make your supply fitting a good 3 feet from the firebox and if you can run copper all the way back to your pool. Be very mindful of your water Temps returning to the pool as you could easily exceed scalding Temps. I would flow as much water as you can muster thru that set up with a bypass setup on the supply side so you can isolate or throttle water flow when you figure out how well the system is running.