Greetings all.
Last year I had a good deal of success with building a solar heater with 1 inch black tubing coiled (100 ft) and mounted on a plywood platform. I made a separate loop for it that allowed flow in and out (to rejoin return water to the pool itself). I had to force water in to the heater loop by restricting pressure flow after the pump. Basically I have a Y which takes pressure from pump and separates into flow to pool and flow to solar heater. There is a valve that I have partially closed down stream of the Y to induce flow to the heater loop.
I further incorporated a valve in the heater loop that is remotely controlled. I have a sprinkler system that had a spare port. I ran the appropriate wires and had my sprinkler controller send signals to open and close when appropriate.
Now, to avoid stress on my Hayward variable speed pump, I want to keep the shut off valve open and have another small pump in the heater loop to pull water in and push it through instead of using the main pool pump and restricting flow. I have thoughts of using a small 110 vac pump (~10 gal/hr) with standard plug controlled by a relay that I can hook up to the sprinkler system, 12-20 vdc.
Before I get too far in both time and money, any thoughts out there?
Last year I had a good deal of success with building a solar heater with 1 inch black tubing coiled (100 ft) and mounted on a plywood platform. I made a separate loop for it that allowed flow in and out (to rejoin return water to the pool itself). I had to force water in to the heater loop by restricting pressure flow after the pump. Basically I have a Y which takes pressure from pump and separates into flow to pool and flow to solar heater. There is a valve that I have partially closed down stream of the Y to induce flow to the heater loop.
I further incorporated a valve in the heater loop that is remotely controlled. I have a sprinkler system that had a spare port. I ran the appropriate wires and had my sprinkler controller send signals to open and close when appropriate.
Now, to avoid stress on my Hayward variable speed pump, I want to keep the shut off valve open and have another small pump in the heater loop to pull water in and push it through instead of using the main pool pump and restricting flow. I have thoughts of using a small 110 vac pump (~10 gal/hr) with standard plug controlled by a relay that I can hook up to the sprinkler system, 12-20 vdc.
Before I get too far in both time and money, any thoughts out there?