DIY Supplemental Solar Heater

[Steve H]

Pondering the thought of building a supplemental solar heater this winter, being in AZ i think this would make good sense
anybody done it? any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks

Steve H

 

[banditig]

I had the fafco panels and installed them myself. They helped! most people here will tell you the pannels you buy are a better choice than trying to fabricate yourself. I wish I still had mine, a powerfull storm ripped it off my garage roof.

 

[JohnT]

Commercial panels will capture a lot more heat than most any DIY version. 100 tiny tubes in parallel with water flowing through each of them means a lot more water in contact with black plastic than a single larger tube. Even a single 4X20 panel which can be purchased for about $200 will blow it away.

 

[pooldv]

I bought my panels at Solar Direct and installed them. They help immensely.

 

[Veccster]

We moved into a house where the previous owner made a DIY solution to heat his AGP. He ran a garden hose off a T in the return, UP the downspout on the side of the house, ALONG the entire length of the gutter, DOWN the other downspout and RETURNED to the pool. He insisted that it would get very hot due to the metal gutters and heat they generated.

I had no patience for this and ripped it all out when I moved in . But it was an interesting idea nonetheless.

 

[pooldv]

Lots of things will get hot in the sun and heat up some water. The key is volume of water. With a pool you need to be able to heat a lot of water a little at a time. Heating a little water a lot isn't going to help much. We've all turned on the garden hose and had 120+ degree water but it is only a couple of gallons and then after that it doesn't heat up at all once water is flowing through the hose.

The way to measure success in solar heating is what is the pool temp at 5pm today and what is the pool temp at 5pm tomorrow. If it didn't go up then it isn't working. It doesn't matter that there is 70 degree water going into the hose and 90 degree water coming out if it is only 30 gal per hour.

 

[xyz]

I've been toying with this myself. The plumbing will be a challenge due to my limited space. But I think doable.

What about sunheater panels?

 

[ashtonfitzgerald]

I built a solar collector for our pool this year and had good success with it. The guidelines to follow are water flow volume and the temperature gain (aka delta-T). It's more efficient to heat lots of water a few degrees than to go for heating a small amount of water many degrees. From my understanding you should aim for about 50% of the pool surface area as your solar collection area for good results. Through the summer here in Southern Ontario I was seeing a 10 degree F gain daily from a 4'x8' collector (two 1/2" x 200' irrigation lines coiled up). My volume of water is small at about 1700 gallons. Solar heating is pointless though if you don't keep the heat in. Covering the pool nightly was necessary to retain the heat, especially through August and September when we would see anywhere from 40-60 degrees overnight. I would usually lose somewhere between 3-5 degrees overnight when covered and closer to 10 degrees when uncovered. The drier climate of the southwest should result in more evaporation thus increasing the cooling at night. I lived in Vegas for several years and found it funny that the swim season there (without a heater) was the same as up north in Canada. Maybe my polar blood just thinned in all that desert sun...[emoji4]

Total build cost for the collector was less than $75.[emoji2]


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[camueller]

I really want solar for my pool, but I'm worried about having to crawl up on the roof every spring to fix leaks after winter freezes. i read somewhere that every winter they had leaks in the connections that needed to be fixed. Not sure how common this is, but it worried me a little. Anyone have any input on this?

 

[pooldv]

I had two leaky hose clamps after the first winter and one after the second. None in the two winters since.

 

[camueller]

I had two leaky hose clamps after the first winter and one after the second. None in the two winters since.

Good to hear. Maybe it's just a matter of things settling in. If I end up doing panels, they'll have to go my the roof of my house. And I don't really want to add climbing onto the roof as a chore in the spring, but maybe i shouldn't worry so much.