Hi Everyone,
Where I live, we don't close the pool for the winter, we just stop swimming when it gets too cold. We maintain the water chemistry, but it's much less work since the water is cold and things change more slowly. Anyway, I have a solar setup without the usual vacuum release valve, I just have a hose bib. Last year to winterize the panels, I simply opened the hose bib and shut off "solar" in the Easytouch. There was one surprise since I didn't know about the freeze protection feature in ET, and one cold morning water shot out the hose bib. Other than that, it worked fine and all was well in the spring.
The hose bib is in the lower left corner of the panels in this photo (you can't see it too well, but that's where it is located):
[attachment=1:19cruk0s]solar.jpg[/attachment:19cruk0s]
To avoid surprises like that, should I also disconnect the electrical connector on the solar valve (just to the right of the filter)? Would anything be damaged if the system tried to activate the solar by accident with the connector disconnected?
[attachment=0:19cruk0s]pad.jpg[/attachment:19cruk0s]
As an alternative, what if I didn't drain the panels and just left the freeze protection activated all winter? We only get a few nights of freezing temperatures around here, and the days always warm up to above freezing. I guess the risk of that would be a power outage at a bad time?
Thanks,
Don
Where I live, we don't close the pool for the winter, we just stop swimming when it gets too cold. We maintain the water chemistry, but it's much less work since the water is cold and things change more slowly. Anyway, I have a solar setup without the usual vacuum release valve, I just have a hose bib. Last year to winterize the panels, I simply opened the hose bib and shut off "solar" in the Easytouch. There was one surprise since I didn't know about the freeze protection feature in ET, and one cold morning water shot out the hose bib. Other than that, it worked fine and all was well in the spring.
The hose bib is in the lower left corner of the panels in this photo (you can't see it too well, but that's where it is located):
[attachment=1:19cruk0s]solar.jpg[/attachment:19cruk0s]
To avoid surprises like that, should I also disconnect the electrical connector on the solar valve (just to the right of the filter)? Would anything be damaged if the system tried to activate the solar by accident with the connector disconnected?
[attachment=0:19cruk0s]pad.jpg[/attachment:19cruk0s]
As an alternative, what if I didn't drain the panels and just left the freeze protection activated all winter? We only get a few nights of freezing temperatures around here, and the days always warm up to above freezing. I guess the risk of that would be a power outage at a bad time?
Thanks,
Don