Above ground solar heater panel setup questions

[chazalicious]

For years, my wife's been wanting to figure out some kind of solar heating setup. The pool's location means that it only gets direct sun until about 1pm, so it only ever gets up to around 82 at the warmest, and is too cold for her to swim by early September. Last year, I tried setting up a DIY irrigation tube thing, which didn't do much. This year, I started looking at biting the bullet and getting actual solar heater panels.

In a crazy bit of luck, my father in law has a coworker that was taking down their pool, and offered to give us some of the accessories from it, including two 2'x20' Sunheater panels! I'm pretty sure they're Sunheater S241P. I know this isn't technically "enough" to heat my pool, but for free, I'm not arguing!

So I have setup questions. The panels will be going on a rack at the opposite end of the pool from the pump. I'm planning on hooking them up in parallel, instead of using the manufacturer's instructions and going in series, based on other posts here. The filter plumbing is all rigid PVC. I'm assuming that it'll be cheaper (better?) to plumb additional rigid PVC the ~40' out to where the panels will be instead of trying to run flexible filter tubing? Assuming I'm running PVC, is there any specific need to also plumb it back into the return, or can I get away with just running a shorter hose from the panel return line directly into the pool?

The way the plumbing is set up now, I have a Y fitting after the filter with a ball valve on the two arms, with one going to the return line, and the other with a garden hose fitting I was using for the previous irrigation tube attempt. The solar panels also came with Sunheater's diverter valve setup. If I don't plumb the warm water back into the return, I couldn't use it. Is there any reason I shouldn't do something like what I have now to act as a diverter, aside from it's more convenient to turn one valve instead of two? And how quickly am I likely to get tired of doing this manually, and spring for the automatic diverter system?

Any thoughts or other info or tips are appreciated!

 

[chazalicious]

One quick bump for visibility.

 

[iamnos]

I'm no expert, but I built a DIY system and am impressed with the results. I have roughly a 24x8 panel with 6 runs of 1/2" tubing in parallel, I see about a 5-6F change in temperature in the water coming into the pool.

Parallel is the way I'd go as well. You'll likely have a higher flow rate through them as a result which overall will translate into more heat gain overall. I'd run rigid PVC. It's easy to work with and pretty tolerant of minor mistakes when it comes to gluing it together. I did set mine up so they came off after all the pool equipment, and return to the same place, and I'd generally recommend that, but to start out and see how it's working, you could plumb directly into the pool. The only issue I see with that, depending on your pool, is that it may not skim as effectively depending on where the water is coming back in.

I'm currently switching mine manually as needed. Not a big deal as I'm usually out there at least once a day checking on things anyways. If I know we're going to have a cloudy/rainy day, I go out and bypass the solar setup the day before. Attached a picture of my bypass (please ignore the crocs and mess). This is from when I put in the valves (and took out the puck dispenser) and before I ran the lines out to the panel. I really only have to flip the two valves, as the return from the solar setup can stay open. I also have the option of opening the valves part way to put some water through solar if the pool is getting too warm, but that hasn't been a problem yet.

 

[chazalicious]

Cool, thanks. If I'm cutting into the plumbing anyway, it's not that much additional work or cost to plumb the outlet from the panels back into the return line, so I'll probably just do that, and put unions at each end, or maybe even flexible filter hose fittings from the hard pipe to the panels.

Then I just need to figure out how to build a frame without breaking the bank, and if I can get away with getting some nylon webbing and footmen's loops or something to attach the panels to the rack, or if I have to get the official mounting kit. Young kids and two dogs running around means I kind of have to put the rack completely off the ground by a few feet at least, instead of being able to rest one end on the ground.

 

[iamnos]

I was fortunate with our property that there's about a 4-5 foot area outside the fence where I can put ours, just mean about 15' of lines each way to get to/from the panel. After that 4-5 feet, it's a very steep drop off. Definitely not a pretty panel, but liking the effectiveness so far, and it's very out of the way. I may eventually replace it with a PVC based panel of the same design on the roof the pergola, but at earliest, that will be next year. Mine is currently laying flat, I should have it tilted at something like 50 degree angle. I had planned to do it, but it's a bugger to maneuver around out there, so for the time being I haven't bothered.