attic pex heat?

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schaeferbarandpool

schaeferbarandpool

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Apr 28, 2016
1
minneapolis mn
Hi, I'm new to TFP thanks for having me. Here's my problem. Heat is expensive, I'm very close to running 1,000 feet of 1" pex in my attic for heat in spring. Minnesota is not favorable for swimming in late April. I will not do solar or radiator type heat. ANY thoughts or help would be appreciated.
Thanks.
28,000 gallon pool
 
:wave: Welcome to TFP!!!

There are some commercial systems that do something similar.

I have to wonder though if you would add more heat to the pool having the pex (or poly) laying out in the sun or in a warm attic.
I think you are going to be disappointed in the impact on your pool.

The problem is that when the attic is the warmest is often when you do not need to add heat to the pool.
 
With the low delta T between the air temp and water,and the low thermal transfer of pex I doubt you will see any heat gain. In fact, with the cool temps we see up north overnight any minor gain will be given up to evaporation. Another concern also might be the risk of condensation in the attic if the dew-point between the pex and the air temp in the attic get to the right point. This will introduce a lot of excess moisture into your attic
 
Not sure if you know exactly how much heat there is in the attic or not. It just so happens I've been monitoring my attic and crawlspace for the last couple months to determine which is the more appropriate storage location. My attic runs about 30 degrees warmer than the ambient but only on sunny days. Today it's cloudy and there's no temperature difference. There's also essentially no difference at night. I can't comment on whether pex running thru that space would pick up enough heat to be meaningful. I have heard that heat pumps generally have about a 30 degree delta, so that MAY be comparable but I couldn't tell you for sure.

Regardless of all that, as someone else already mentioned... putting 1000 ft of water filled pex in your attic seems like a potentially very dangerous thing regarding failure modes. If the pex develops a leak or breaks, its going to wreck, at the very least, your ceiling. The benefit of a roof setup vs attic setup is your roof is already designed to shed water. if something failed on the OUTSIDE of your roof, it wouldn't be great in that it would drain your pool, but it isn't also going to flood your house.

I wouldn't be shocked to hear that homeowners insurance isn't going to pay to fix anything from a pool heater attic induced flood.
 
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