Solar Pill

[jcskpool]

Come on, reducing evaporation lost and therefore temperature loss by producing a film in the water!!!??

Anyone with any experience with this product, "Solar Pill"?

 

[dmanb2b]

aka Snake oil Garbage. Solar cover is what you want.

 

[chem geek]

It isn't as good as a real cover, but it there isn't a lot of wind then it can work to reduce evaporation and therefore heat loss. The problem is that a breeze or wind will push the one-molecule thick layer towards one end of the pool exposing a lot of water. So I wouldn't call this snake oil in that it isn't completely bogus, but it's not nearly as effective as a real cover and needs calm conditions. One of the original products, HeatSavr, uses cetyl alcohol as its primary ingredient (along with dispersant such as isopropyl alcohol along with some calcium hydroxide). There's a long thread about this on another forum here.

 

[jcskpool]

Thanks for the info and link, Chem Geek.

 

[dmanb2b]

It isn't as good as a real cover, but it there isn't a lot of wind then it can work to reduce evaporation and therefore heat loss. The problem is that a breeze or wind will push the one-molecule thick layer towards one end of the pool exposing a lot of water. So I wouldn't call this snake oil in that it isn't completely bogus, but it's not nearly as effective as a real cover and needs calm conditions. One of the original products, HeatSavr, uses cetyl alcohol as its primary ingredient (along with dispersant such as isopropyl alcohol along with some calcium hydroxide). There's a long thread about this on another forum here.

For the solar pill, given there is no mention of calm conditions required and it's questionable benefit, i'd still call it snake oil. Snake oil is still oil, just doesn't work as well as the marketing around it would make you believe. At least Heastsvr calls out the calm condition requirement.