If I could take THAT heat and put it in THERE...

[jaybee]

I have a 9500gal above ground pool with one 2'x20' solar panel. Unfortunately both the pool and the heater get more shade than ideal, but that's what my site gives me. A couple of nights ago I was doing my evening pool test/treat routine when the air conditioner kicked on, and with it my thinking cap. "If I could take the heat that comes out of the house via A/C and put it in the pool water I'd really have something", I thought. Has anyone done this? I've thought of three potential approaches;
-Place a radiator over the A/C fan outlet so the warm condensor exhaust can warm the water as it's pumped through. Potentially this could restrict airflow enough to compromise efficiency of the A/C unit.
-Coil plastic tubing around the refrigerant hot line, wrap the whole thing in water pipe insulation, pump pool water through. There may not be a lot of heat gained through this method.
-Pump pool water through some sort of low pressure vessel, maybe an old filter housing. Place a copper coil inside, pump refrigerant through on the way to the condensor. This one makes me nervous because it means tinkering with the A/C itself, but probably has the best potential for positive results and could actually make the unit more efficient because the heat transfer to water would be very good.

 

[flintstone]

A friend of mine who installs pellet stoves and gas inserts mentioned in passing the other day that a product currently exists that converts heat from the AC to heat the pool. I feel guilty when I'm outside swimming and my AC is running, so I wouldn't use one, but it does exist. A Google search using "AC heat pool" resulted in the following information: http://toad.net/~jsmeenen/pool/ I know nothing about the company and even less about heating systems. I just thought it was a coincidence that you both brought up the subject. And, if you are as handy as my friend, you could probably do it yourself.

 

[launboy]

I made a post about this very idea a while ago. Here's my link: http://www.troublefreepool.com/heat-pump-a-c-t7573.html

I also had the idea to use a normal Pool Heat Pump and putting in inside the house next to the furnace so the cool air from the heat pump would be blown into the house vents. I still like this idea for the simplicity of it. If you used it to cool a workshop or garage you wouldn't have to do much ducting.

Also if you buy a Geothermal heat pump it would already have everything you are looking for. Some of them use water running through pipes underground to cool the refrigerant. I don't know how long the heat exchanger would stand up to pool water though.

I think you would need something to be custom built to get exactly what you want. You'd have to buy a Pool heat pump and take the heat exchanger part out of it, then take the air conditioner condensor out and hook those lines to the heat pump exchanger. It would work, but might be expensive to do it that way.

HTH,
Adam

 

[JasonLion]

There are several disadvantages to such systems, which is why they are not commonly sold. The primary problem is that the peak season for home AC usage is in the middle of the summer, while the peak season for pool heating is in the spring and fall. If you don't need pool heating and home AC at the same time you have defeated the whole point of the system.