Solar Heater

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MirellaJoe

MirellaJoe

0
Jun 4, 2013
144
Aurora, Ontario-Canada
Well we just bought a solar heater, specifically the solar arc. I'm a bit confused on hook up. I've tried to look up the solar arc connections with an intex sandfilter pump and SWG but i havent found anything and my next question is how affective is this and will i lose pressure on my sandfilter pump from this solar heater?
 
Anything you add to the plumbing adds head loss and thus reduces the flow rate.

Solar heating is all about surface area of exposure to the sun. That systems looks pretty small. It will certainly add some heat to the pool, but no telling if it will be noticeable or enough for what you are trying to accomplish. The large flat solar panels appear to be a good bit cheaper than the Solar Arc and likely would have provided more heat.

I have no idea what is required to hook it up to your system unfortunately.
 
The Solar Arc is a bit of a gimmick, it probably does warm the water some, just remember heating a pool is not about adding a little bit of very warm water it is about maximum thermal transfer which usually means adding a whole lot of only very slightly warmed water. As Jason says solar pool heaters are all about surface area, there are only so many watts of heat per square foot of sunlight, and under typical swimming weather conditions those big black plastic panels are surprisingly efficient at sucking it up, there just is not that much room left for magic small panels to do anything extra except give the impression of heating by supplying a small amount of very warm water.

Ike
 
I was going to run some math, but of course Solar Arc does not publish the BTU available per day. So I will make some wild assumptions:
- The unit is 4 sqft, but lets say their revolutionary design is the equivalent of 10sqft of sun exposure.
- Lets also assume that it provides 1000 BTU/sqft/day similar to a true solar panel.
So, it may provide 10,000 BTUs per day.

1 BTU raises 1 pound of water by 1 degree F. Your pool is ~5500 gallons = 45,650 pounds of water.

So the heater should raise the pool by 10000 / 45650 = ~1/4 degree F per day ... not including losses.
How they can claim 10 degrees in under 5 days absolutely baffles me.

You would likely see a better warming of the pool by using a solar cover to reduce losses to evaporation.
 
thanks guys!! i got hubby to hook it up and now we will see how this thing works, it is in the sun all day so i'm hoping it will warm the water to some degree i dont expect a huge drastic change but i would hope at least 5 degrees "hopefully". My water temp is usually between 70-75F, and pretty much in the sun all day as long as it's a sunny and when it's in the sun all day it's about 70F, the ideal temp would be 80-85F...ahh i'm keeping my fingers crossed!:cool:
 
You are best to let the sun beat on the pool all day without the cover with the pump off and then cover it at night to keep that heat.
 

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The solar heater is just adding more back pressure to the system causing the pressure gauge to go up a little, the sand filter itself is no dirtier than before, but your level of circulation may be reduced.

Ike
 
Solar Arc Pool Heater

I Just bought a solar arc for my pool since last year the summer here wasnt to hot so we were always swimming in cold water, well more like freezing water. Anyways i was just wondering if anyone has had the experience with this kinda solar and if so was it good or bad? another question is did hubby hook this up right from the pic that i posted? as u can see from the pic we have it tilted, in the manual it's asking to have the opposite side up do you think it makes a difference?


edited to add- i took a temp and it was 79f which isnt too bad!!

 
Casey said:
You are best to let the sun beat on the pool all day without the cover with the pump off and then cover it at night to keep that heat.
Click to expand...

+1

I noticed a much greater temp increase with the pump off vs. pump on. With the pump running it creates ripples and causes some sun reflection I assume.

I run a secondary pump of much smaller for my homemade solar. The pump does not cause much disturbance in the water surface when running. plus using my big pump for solar would cost a fortune! at 700watts a hr.

I have seen water temp increase of 6-8 degrees in one day. Using solar heater with pool uncovered. must cover at night or will loose heat typical drop is 1-2 degrees per night with cover.
 
Re: Solar Arc Pool Heater

Since that heater has a very small surface area, it will not heat the water much at all. Heat gain is proportional to surface area, and that just doesn't have enough surface area to do much.
 

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