Solar Sun Rings - Actual Savings or Mythical Being

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PMellin

0
Jul 25, 2012
49
Basking Ridge, NJ
Hey guys,

I'm sure by now everyone has seen these inflatable circles touted as "Solar Sun Rings" which make all sorts of claims to keep the heat in your pool from evaporating off the surface (My most recent favorite: "PROVIDE 21,000 BTU’S OF HEAT PER RING, PER DAY – FOR FREE!" "Extend your swimming season and slash your energy bills with In the Swim's innovative Solar Sun rings. Solar pool sun rings are vinyl discs which lie on the surface of your swimming pool and use heat energy from the sun to raise the temperature of your pool. More specifically, the upper clear layer of solar sun rings holds insulating air and also focuses sunlight on the lower blue layer of the discs. The blue layer of swimming pool solar sun rings absorbs approximately 50% of sunlight and converts it to heat, while allowing the remaining sunlight to pass into the pool for deep water heating." Ummmm.....while I would love keep more of the heat that I put in my pool, well, in my pool, I simply can't believe that these things actually work. Especially on a free form pool with a raised attached spa.

Thoughts?

http://www.intheswim.com/Pool-Covers/In-Ground-Pool-Solar-Reels/Solar-Sun-Rings/
 
There are many discussions about these in the forum if you search.

Bottom line, any wind makes them pile up and be much less effective. A "solar" blanket would work better.
 
I think those things should have unicorn pictures on them! Especially their claims. You'd be better off covering a larger percentage of your pool if not all with a solar cover.
 
There is some truth here, as they essentially act like a solar pool cover if there are enough of them, which actually does little if anything to heat the pool, but what they do is prevent heat loss through evaporation. However a conventional solar bubble cover does it better and cheaper.
 
This is a late reply to this thread. I bought the solar rings last fall. And had them on my pool all winter. I never had an issue with them piling unless I accidentally did that when I put them in.

They have magnets around the outside that seem to catch and help it form into a mass of floating rings.

They do get really grimy and you have to be careful where you put them when you pull them out. My pool surface is so big that I have 20 of them. We had a solar cover and I could not handle it by myself. Also, with my unusual pool shape these are better.

Now, I don't really need help heating my pool in AZ. They probably will help me swim a little earlier than normal and maybe a little later than normal. Otherwise - I hope that they help keep the pool a little cleaner and lower the chlorine loss with all the sunshine we get.
 
I found them to be more trouble than they are worth. My folks had a dozen, and let me borrow them to see for myself. They tend to kink up if not inflated a certain way. The wind stacked them up on each other. They get lots of deposits on them from any water that evaporates from them. Cleaning and deflating them is a real joy. They are very expensive relative to a bubble cover.
 
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