My two month old above ground pool is already getting cold and it's still August, so I am thinking about heating the water. The roof of my house faces south and would be ideal for solar heating as it gets very little shade, whereas the pool gets tons of shade. The biggest problem is that the roof is three stories up, some 60-80 feet by sight guessing w/o actually measuring, so obviously the biggest hurdle is how to get water from the pool up to the roof. I thought of the following:
View attachment pool diagram.pdf
The idea is to add an in-wall skimmer with valve that flows to a trash can which is elevated to the height of the pool so that gravity can not make it overflow. The trash can gets filled with sand and clean water collected at bottom where there's a valved outlet allowing gravity to take water over to the pump and provide some positive pressure at the pump's intake. The pump will be located some 35-45 feet away at ground level. The pump then sends the cold water straight up to the roof. (Will need to purchase an appropriate pump....any suggestions?) On the roof will be solar heating devices. (No, I haven't made any decisions as yet in this regard.) Then, gravity can bring the hot water back down to the pool.
In order to backwash the unpressurized sand filter, I attach a garden hose from a faucet to an inlet valve on the bottom of the trash can, turn on the faucet, and let the dirty water (and hopefully not much sand) overflow to the ground.
Anyone see any problems, flaws, defects, just plain stupidity here or otherwise have any comments?
View attachment pool diagram.pdf
The idea is to add an in-wall skimmer with valve that flows to a trash can which is elevated to the height of the pool so that gravity can not make it overflow. The trash can gets filled with sand and clean water collected at bottom where there's a valved outlet allowing gravity to take water over to the pump and provide some positive pressure at the pump's intake. The pump will be located some 35-45 feet away at ground level. The pump then sends the cold water straight up to the roof. (Will need to purchase an appropriate pump....any suggestions?) On the roof will be solar heating devices. (No, I haven't made any decisions as yet in this regard.) Then, gravity can bring the hot water back down to the pool.
In order to backwash the unpressurized sand filter, I attach a garden hose from a faucet to an inlet valve on the bottom of the trash can, turn on the faucet, and let the dirty water (and hopefully not much sand) overflow to the ground.
Anyone see any problems, flaws, defects, just plain stupidity here or otherwise have any comments?