Brad, I don’t want to hi-jack this thread, but I would be interested in more detail on your maintenance experience with the Glacier chillers. We will be using ours for the first time this summer. What do you recommend for preventive maintenance and operating tips besides what is in the operating manual? Thanks, Mark
The product itself works well. I really can't speak ill of it's effectiveness; it's just a whole extra set of moving components that all have to work in tandem, all the time, for the device to be useful. As a service company, it's that much more to maintain and repair over time. This was the point of my other comment - hopefully it doesn't impact your view of your investment.
Haha yessir - my first thought at the first one we onboarded. I actually thought it was a clever adaptation, and then we ran it, and it was instantly annoying and I knew it'd be trouble for us.
+1. They work better in the west for sure. Our summer humidity is less than 20% most days. If not, it's usually because of a monsoon storm. I would be interested to see if Glacier has a performance curve for humidity.
YES. But not an amount that seems to impede its usefulness. The oldest one we have is 3 years and we've done no real cleaning of the grids or wands. But we also don't use them really all that much. Only a few pools have needed it during large use gaps when the cover was on 99% of the week, for weeks. Even then, we'd run them for an afternoon and then shut them off. It would cool them off a solid 5 or 6 degrees or so each time which was all we usually needed. Granted these aren't huge pools. All 20k or less.
True and probably my greatest concern. I usually program mine to come on at 3 a.m. each night and I’ve worried about the sump pump failing, but it hasn’t so far. If we’re traveling, I shut it off altogether.
I hose off the grids every year when closing, but that’s about it. I’ve never noticed any scale, but really can’t see down between the grids. The grids are plastic and not “pads” like I’ve seen in actual swamp coolers. They don’t have any absorption qualities. I think they’re there to break up the water so that when the fan blows across them, it causes more evaporation. I have seen a very small amount of scale in the basin, but nothing that concerns me.
I wouldn’t say useless, but there’s no question that the lower the humidity, the more effective it is. I live in the Dallas area and our summers can get pretty humid. Even when humidity is high, our water temp won’t get any warmer than 85°. Ambient temps are usually a little lower with high humidity, so that’s probably a factor. It really gets interesting when we have very low humidity. We had a spell last summer where water temp had dropped into the mid-70s and I had to shut the chiller off.
But I’ll take that over 95° water any day!Believe me, I tried. I tried using the spa fountain combined with 4 of those PVC contraptions that spray the water back into the pool. I could get maybe a 4-5° drop overnight, but by early afternoon, water temp would be right back up into the 90s. Making things worse, the wind would blow the spray onto the surrounding landscaping and was killing it.
In the way back time, when I was a kid and houses here on the Texas Gulf Coast didn't have a/c, folks thought those things were going to be the ticket. They turned out to only be good wallpaper removers.
Interesting thought indeed! I’ll do that at some point this year.
If you mean gallons in vs gallons out, I don’t think there’s a practical way to measure that. I can say that water loss is significant, especially during low humidity periods. I sometimes have to fill the pool twice in a week.
What hours do you run the chiller? 7pm - 12 pm? When not running chiller do you run the filter pump during the hottest part of the day?I saw the title and as a Glacier owner for well over 5 years I was intrigued. Other than cleaning leaves out of the basin every Spring when I open the pool, and then draining the basin, hosing the chiller off, and putting a tarp over the it when closing in the fall, I don’t have any regular maintenance for our Glacier.
As part of non-routine maintenance, I once had to reattach the pump in the basin, as it is connected to the outlet port using PVC glue. Guess the factory skimped on the glue. That occurred shortly after it was installed and it has held up ever since. Right around year 5, I had to replace the fan motor. I run the chiller for 16-17 hours every day during the summer, so I probably put more stress on the motor than most.
Neither repair was difficult. I’m not the handiest when it comes to stuff like that, but was able to manage each repair on my own.
As far as how well it works, the Glacier saved our pool. Our water temp would hit 95° around July 4 and no one wanted to get in the pool. It’s rare for the water temp to reach 85° now. You don’t have to keep it that cool. That’s just the way I like it.
I live in Houston where you’d be hard pressed to find a higher humidity city. I run My Glacier Chiller here every year. I get my water down to 82 deg where my wife then tells me to turn it off. It works excellent in high humidity. I only run it 10 hours a day..
Once summer kicks in and temps are regularly in the 90s, I typically run the chiller 3am - 8pm, which is the same as my pump schedule. After reading @Bvacchiano ‘s post above, I may try dialing it down by a few hours. Houston’s humidity is much higher than Dallas’s, so if he’s getting by with 10 hours, hopefully I can do something similar.
this is my first summer being able to use the Glacier Cooler we installed (13K gallon pool) here in Phoenix and it is epic! I had same experience where I had to reglue the pipe in the basin (from the sump pump) but other than that it could not be easier. I had been a bit worried about running it most of the day (I run now at night) but sounds like from your experience you can just bang away. Right now (with heat wave)...overnight I get pool down to about 81 degrees by morning and turn off chiller. By 5 pm it is up close to 88 degrees...which is still a bit too warm for this time of year for us. Going to try and run it most of the day today to see if I can keep it in the 84 range. so glad we made the decision to install!I saw the title and as a Glacier owner for well over 5 years I was intrigued. Other than cleaning leaves out of the basin every Spring when I open the pool, and then draining the basin, hosing the chiller off, and putting a tarp over the it when closing in the fall, I don’t have any regular maintenance for our Glacier.
As part of non-routine maintenance, I once had to reattach the pump in the basin, as it is connected to the outlet port using PVC glue. Guess the factory skimped on the glue. That occurred shortly after it was installed and it has held up ever since. Right around year 5, I had to replace the fan motor. I run the chiller for 16-17 hours every day during the summer, so I probably put more stress on the motor than most.
Neither repair was difficult. I’m not the handiest when it comes to stuff like that, but was able to manage each repair on my own.
As far as how well it works, the Glacier saved our pool. Our water temp would hit 95° around July 4 and no one wanted to get in the pool. It’s rare for the water temp to reach 85° now. You don’t have to keep it that cool. That’s just the way I like it.
With your arid climate, you may be able to keep temp in the 84°, especially if your chiller or pool is shaded even part of the day. While my pool gets lots of sun exposure, the chiller is heavily shaded and never gets direct sun. If our humidity ever lets up, I can get the water down into the upper 70s overnight.
+1 So, I/we don’t run it when we go to bed. I am nervous enough if I run an errand and I’m gone for an hour or two.
