might have a problem, after opening too early

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tchoke

0
Mar 9, 2012
10
hamilton ontario
boy oh boy opening early for me might give me some problems
located in hamilton ontario i opened last saturday and looking at the weather coming up nxt week
it looks like we might get below freezing at night :rant: :rant: :rant: i just had my solar panels
installed couple days ago, should i close my pool??? or will running the pump all night prevent freezing?
i have underground pipes as well, some advice would be greatly appreciated
heres a link of my weather forecast http://www.theweathernetwork.com/weathe ... f=homecity
 
If it was just getting down into the 20's, I would say just run the pump. Single digits though? I'm not sure that you could get away with that; especially for several days in a row.
 
If your equipment is outside, you can always cover/tarp it. You can always run an extension cord and hang one of those work lights underneath to generate heat. One thing I have done is use some of that heated electrical cord like they use for mobile homes to wrap the exposed pipes in too.
 
Leave it run and you'll be fine, just make sure all the valves are open so you don't have any standing water in the plumbing. It's still above freezing in the day time and moving water shouldn't freeze.
 
thanks for the tips everyone :)
spoke to the solar installer he recommended to just run the pump overnight and run it through the solar
its going to dip below zero overnight on monday but will be rising back up during day time
my equipment is in a shed
 
257WbyMag said:
If it was just getting down into the 20's, I would say just run the pump. Single digits though? I'm not sure that you could get away with that; especially for several days in a row.
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It's celsius..just a touch below freezing...leads to some serious shrinkage when swimming...but we're Canadian..no big deal..

Seriously, I usually open the first week of April every year, and just let the pump do it's thing if it drops below freezing (comes on automatically at 35f). I've never worried about the solar panels, but when my pump shuts down and the solar has been on, the vacuum valve lets a fair amount of water drain back into the pool. Not all, mind you, because when I open the actual drain valve a lot more will come out.
 
tchoke, it looks like only Sunday night to Monday and Monday night to Tuesday are going to be below freezing (-2 and -3 celsius, or 28f and 26f). Long term shows above freezing after that. I discovered that my pump is freeze protected by default and I can program my deck jets, pool light, and AUX3 (which isn't currently hooked up to anything), but not my solar panels. Kind of stupid programming by Jandy (I have the Aqualink PDA) - why would I need to protect the lights, when they are in the water, which shouldn't freeze if the pump is running?

So anyway, I went ahead and drained my solar panels and the lines leading to and fro. However, I've never done this previous years and never had a problem even without the solar panels having flow to them.
 
rcy
yea the weather is getting sucky all of a sudden, i was outside today enjoying my new wicker furniture
sun was out and it was beautiful but as soon as sun went down things got chilly.
as for me i will just leave the pump running 24 hrs for the next 3 days just to make sure no standing water in the solar panels freeze.
friday i had the pool at 18 but since last night the weather dipped i ran the solar overnight and this morning it was 12c
the 3 hours that i had the solar running with some decent sun i picked up 4c im excited for this summer with my new solars :party:
 
Brrrr...-1 right now. Pump came on automatically...all looks good.

I find that on a day of full sun, my system can put about 10 c into the water. I've got it as high as 92f in the summer.

I think running the solar like that (warm water, cold air) can actually remove heat from the water.
 

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rcy said:
Windchill does not affect inanimate objects. Even with wind, the temperature of the object can not fall below the ambient temperature. Or so I've been told...
Click to expand...

never heard of this, anyhow looking at your sig
i see you have a tristar pump, i actually just replaced my old pump and got a .5hp tristar
im hoping it saves me money on hydro :goodjob:
 
rcy said:
Windchill does not affect inanimate objects. Even with wind, the temperature of the object can not fall below the ambient temperature. Or so I've been told...
Click to expand...

:goodjob:

The windchill comes from {NOT:evaporation} convection through the skin ... so the body tries to keep the skin temp constant and thus we feel colder than the air temp and in fact are loosing heat more rapidly.

The wind will just cool an object FASTER down to the air temp but not colder.
 
I don't have anything to compare my Tristar to regarding electrical use, since this is our first pool. It was built in 2007 and I've never had a problem with it. I know the solar installer was very impressed with the volume of water that it was moving (apparently with solar, faster flow is better than slower flow - I asked if it wouldn't make more sense to have slow flow so the water could pick up more heat, and he gave me a very technical explanation that was completely over my head, but the end result was faster was better).
 
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