DIY Solar Pool Heater Idea

[Charles]

I am looking at building a simple, CHEAP, solar heater for my ABG pool. But I am no genius when it comes to fluid dynamics. I plan to install a valve on my current 1.5" PVC in order to shunt it off to multiple half inch poly tubing (used for drip irrigation).

Could I just use a PVC manifold

add adapters to connect 100' of tubing to each, and another manifold on the other end to send to the pool? That's a lot of distance to push fluid, right? Or should I have more but shorter runs?

 

[JohnT]

You'd get very poor efficency. What you want are many, many very small tubes to maximize water contact with the tubes.

 

[X-PertPool]

Until this year we were using the same diameter pipe for our solar system. The only difference was that the pipe was enclosed inside a box with a lid made out of old slide glass doors. It worked fine, just make sure you use a solar cover as well and have a valve to control the flow to the solar pipe.

 

[Charles]

You'd get very poor efficency. What you want are many, many very small tubes to maximize water contact with the tubes.

I know. But I cannot think of a material that will do that other than a commercial kit.

 

[Charles]

Until this year we were using the same diameter pipe for our solar system. The only difference was that the pipe was enclosed inside a box with a lid made out of old slide glass doors. It worked fine, just make sure you use a solar cover as well and have a valve to control the flow to the solar pipe.

I plan to have box with a radiant barrier on the bottom, then black plastic, the tubes, and topped with window glass.