Solarpro dome coiled heater

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D

D_Nyholm

0
Mar 8, 2013
55
Sayville, NY
I was looking at the SolarPro coiled dome heaters.

http://www.doheny.com/poolsupplies/Sola ... aters.html

I was thinking that in order to get a little more heat into my pool, i would get 2 or 3 of these and plumb them in series and then connect them to my return. I could mount them on a plywood board and then only put them out when people are not coming around and disconnect them and put them in my shed. I was looking at the large ones which have 66' of coiled pipe inside. Would 3 of these actually do anything in a 16x32 IG pool with a solar cover on it? I was thinking that if they could raise the temperate just a few degrees, the initial cash outlay is not that bad. If it looks like they may only do 1 degree, they would be pointless.

Another option would be one of these done in the same fashion. Maybe i could get two, but I have a feeling moving them around frequently would be a big no no:

http://www.doheny.com/poolsupplies/Sola ... anels.html


Just to be more clear, my main goal with these heaters is something I can put up and take down frequently as I feel i will be using them during the week when no one is using the pool and then putting them away on the weekends. I have a fairly large shed (10x14) so I would like to store them in there or even behind the shed if I can. So weight and size are important. I understand that LARGE heaters are needed for pools, but I just want to add whatever I can to extend the season as much as I can.

I read a post where and individual made 4 5' round collectors with 250' of 1/2" flexible black (irrigation) pipe. His post stated he added 25* to his pool with them, but he was in arizona. I would like to make something similar, but maybe just smaller and less cumbersome.

At some point in the future, I would like to add some panels to the roof, but I do not want to do that until I get a new roof put on the house (less than 10 years) and also get solar hot water heating for the house which will require 3 or 4 smaller collectors. I have ideal sun exposure on my roof and my back yard is pretty ideal as well. I am planning on putting these on the patio on the far side of the pool. It is only a 5' wide patio at that point with gardens all around it so I really dont have much space to work with.
 
Heat from solar is mostly about the size of the panels. Both of these are very small compared to the more typical 2X20 panels which are 40 sq. ft. Generally, for solar to make much difference in pool temperatures, you need a combination of panels sized at 50-100% of the pool surface area. With that said, yours is a very small pool, so you might get some benefit even at a smaller size, though the cost to sq. footage of the panels you listed is really high.
 
I am currently building some DIY coil (irrigation pipe) solar collectors like you mentioned for my IG pool. I think with alittle thought you could easily make them portable. Tee into your existing pump plumbing and use shutoff valves with disconnect unions. The collectors could have legs on the rear that fold out to stand them up at an angle to the sun. They would be very compact when the legs are folded. You could size them however you want, 3x3, 4x4, 5x5. However i would suggest to go with the 4x4 and have at least three panels to start. 4 would be better. Each panel would not be more than 2" thick. Each panel would only cost about $35 plus plumbing to and from the pool and valves. You may spend a couple hundred dollars but you would get alot better performance than those little units. Also i have not seen very many good reviews on those products you showed so if you do decide to go that route make sure you research them really good.

I am modeling mine after this guys system but with more permenant mounting.

http://rimstar.org/renewnrg/solar_pool_ ... diy_fp.htm

skeeter
 
A 4' circle is still at best only 12.5 sqft. For a "couple hundred bucks" you could likely get a couple of the 2'x20' solar mats and have 80 sqft.

There have been many discussions here about the DIY method and it is very difficult to make one that performs as well and is cheaper than the panels that can be readily bought on Ebay.

My current house had a DIY setup with 2500' of 1" black poly pipe laid all over the roof (not organized). At best that was ~200sqft, but in reality it was piled up and overlapped and had leaks all the time that were difficult to fix (this was thicker than normal irrigation pipe, so the force-fit couplers would not work). Much happier with my 500 sqft of panels now.
 
Well, I am not sure. But, I miss the point of doing that ... is the reasoning behind that to have them out of sight on the weekends? I would want to keep the solar running all the time as you can quickly lose heat.
 
jblizzle said:
Well, I am not sure. But, I miss the point of doing that ... is the reasoning behind that to have them out of sight on the weekends? I would want to keep the solar running all the time as you can quickly lose heat.
Click to expand...
Yes, I want to lay them on my patio when I want to add some heat, but be able to remove them if we are having people over to use the pool. I guess they may stay out more than a week at a time, but not very often.
Heck, we already had my niece and nephew in the pool. The temperature of the water was a balmy 58 degrees! Let's just say the kids jumped in, literally jumped out, and then jumped in a hot shower :)
 

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Anything in a "portable" configuration is not likely going to be worth the effort, but may make some difference. Keeping a solar cover on the pool at night is key. We run 2 4x20 panels on a pool almost half the size of yours and get about a 10 degree temp differential vs neighbors with no heat, but do use a solar cover.
 
We've got a DIY setup on the pool now. The largest thing for them to "work" is by figuring out what your goal is. If you want to heat the pool up to 90....then these or any DIY pipe setup won't work. They just don't get hot enough to do much. Most the heat gained is lost at night (even with a cover). Now if your goal is to extended your season by a few weeks, then these work well. We had the pool last year (a hot season however) warm enough to swim in early May and well into Sept before we closed.

Was worth the work for us, but to do it again I'd look into a bought solar panel design.
 
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