Glacier Pool Cooler - Help

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You can’t run one of those in an enclosed space. The operational principal of them is that they use evaporative cooling of the water inside the chiller body to reduce the water temperature. If you put it in an enclosed room, the humidity will reach 100% and the cooler will stop cooling … not to mention the shed will turn into a swamp.
 
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That makes a ton of sense. Thanks @JoyfulNoise

Preplumbing it is.

Now to figure out whether to oversize or stick with the recommended table. My gut tells me things are only getting hotter, so the 210 might be better to allow for more headroom.
 
fnhanks said:
Now to figure out whether to oversize or stick with the recommended table. My gut tells me things are only getting hotter, so the 210 might be better to allow for more headroom.
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If you have the space, I’d go with the 210. I have the 210 on a 25,500 gallon pool and it works great, but you may be able to cool quicker and not need to run as long if you oversize. Just keep in mind how large the chiller is. Resembles a jet engine, but mine is hidden behind a partition so I don’t particularly care. Also, if you have a shady spot for the chiller, that will help. No direct sun hits my chiller, which I believe is a contributing factor in how well it works in my pool.

Got up to a 78° pool this morning. Should feel good after walking 18 holes in 102° weather today!
 
fnhanks said:
1) The glacier docs recommend the GPC-25 for pools 9-20k and GPC-210 for 20k-30k. Our pool is going to be 16k (still being built). We live in Texas where it’s surface of the sun temps at this point. Is there any advantage to doing the 210? I saw one poster above that had a 15k pool and did the 210 was happy. Are there any negative impacts? Or is it just more powerful and this would help us eek out more cooking performance?
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My pool is 15k and we went with the 210. I can't speak to whether or not it's better or worse than the smaller unit. My builder said I run the risk of my pool getting too cold with this bigger unit. My builder was an idiot -- I wish my pool getting too cold (in the summer) was a problem!
 
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In case anybody every wondered (like I did) whether or not a chiller is more effective in a dry environment, I confirmed last night that it absolutely is. We had an unexpected bout of dry air in Houston last night. I run my chiller overnight, from 9pm - 6:30am, every night, and do not run the pump or chiller during the day. I started this practice a couple of weeks ago. Last week I started keeping regular and detailed records of pool temps. Here is the drop in temperate between 10pm & 6am over the last 7 days.

2.8
2.5
2.1
2
2.2
2.4
2.2

Last night it was 5.3. My pool temp is normally between 82.4 & 83.7 @ 6am, as long as the chiller is running all night. This morning it was 80.4. For me at least, this was a really cool find/confirmation.
 
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The key factors for determining the rate of cooling is the difference between the air temperature and the pool water temperature as well as what the dew point temperature is. Dew point temperature is a measure of the amount of saturation of water vapor in the air and is related to relative humidity.

Where I live, the air temperatures may not be that much cooler than the water temperatures in the overnight hours BUT the dew point is almost always 20-30° lower than the water temperature. So as long as there’s a little bit of air movement and water agitation, the pool water will evaporate and cool … that’s why my water meter spins like a roulette wheel in cheap Vegas casino during the overnight hours 🙄
 
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Benkg43 said:
and do not run the pump or chiller during the day.
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As @JoyfulNoise notes above, the dew point is a significant factor in cooling through evaporation. I’m in DFW and our dew point is lowest in the late afternoon/early evening hours. You might want to try a schedule that includes those hours even though the air temp will be higher.

As an aside, we had the same drop in temps in our area, with overnight lows getting into the 60s! Woke up to a 76° pool this morning! Unfortunately, the heat dome will be back tomorrow, with a forecast of 108° and 109° on Friday. Looking forward to:

 
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I recently cut back my run time. I've been running it for about 3 hours in the morning 9a-12p. It's down to 83 now. I might have to cut it more, since the rest of the family prefers the pool at 85+.

I've been debating the optimal run times (early morning, overnight, low dewpoint). The current times seem to be working out well, but the dewpoint has been better this week.
 
There is also some cooling in the Glacier that is the result of increasing rhe surface area of the water exposed to air cooler than the water. Droplets have more surface area than even a shallow pool of water of the same volume. The math in this area is beyond me but it is easy enough to see the difference surface area makes with simple experimentation. My grandfather used to pour his hot coffee into a saucer to cool it off faster than leaving it in the cup. You can also see the increase i. energy required to heat water change as air blows across-the pot. A fan blowing across rhe top of a pot of boiling water can increase the time to bowl by several minutes.

So while evaporation may be the major component of how the Glacier cooler works, the cooler air being forcibly pulled upward through the baffles across the increased surface area of the water is a factor too.
 
KevMo said:
There is also some cooling in the Glacier that is the result of increasing rhe surface area of the water exposed to air cooler than the water. Droplets have more surface area than even a shallow pool of water of the same volume. The math in this area is beyond me but it is easy enough to see the difference surface area makes with simple experimentation. My grandfather used to pour his hot coffee into a saucer to cool it off faster than leaving it in the cup. You can also see the increase i. energy required to heat water change as air blows across-the pot. A fan blowing across rhe top of a pot of boiling water can increase the time to bowl by several minutes.

So while evaporation may be the major component of how the Glacier cooler works, the cooler air being forcibly pulled upward through the baffles across the increased surface area of the water is a factor too.
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Please explain the “cooler air being forcibly pulled upward through the baffles” comment. Not sure I comprehend what air is being “pulled upward.”
 
Benkg43 said:
Please explain the “cooler air being forcibly pulled upward through the baffles” comment. Not sure I comprehend what air is being “pulled upward.”
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The fan blows upwards, out of the top of the chiller. That means it is pulling air from the bottom, up through the baffles.
 
twillux said:
No problem; I went through a lot of research setting mine up too.

The fan has nothing to do with the wands. Water flowing into the cooler with enough pressure will cause the wands to rotate. As they rotate, water will stream out of holes along each wand and drip down into the basin. You’re right, it’s definitely a drip or stream, not a spray. The important thing is that water is clearly coming out of all wands, and most importantly that the wands are rotating between 7-12 revolutions per minute. You can time the rotations with a watch and count how many full rotations one specific wand makes in one minute. If you’re outside of the 7-12, you adjust the inlet ball valve to change the amount of water going into the cooler.
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Hi there! I am a fellow Baton Rouge resident. I recently added a Glacier pool chiller to my saltwater system. I find it cools a little, but not a lot. How cool does your system get? My pool is down to about 86 today (and running 24 hours a day). One issue might be that the chiller does not fully empty each cycle (only partially). And the revolution speed is about 5-6 RPM. Anyway if you have any advice for operating the chiller that would be much appreciated! Dan
 
Its 102 outside and my pool is holding @ 83.
My wands spins faster than that. I run them as fast as I can, till they start spilling water out at the bottom.
Arizona
 
Ed Blown Vert said:
Its 102 outside and my pool is holding @ 83.
My wands spins faster than that. I run them as fast as I can, till they start spilling water out at the bottom.
Arizona
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High humidity makes these less efficient. That being said, I've been able to keep mine around 83-84 with minimal run time each day (3 hours). I'm somewhere between Baton Rouge and Arizona on humidity.

I think your wand optimization might be the key. I had mine too fast and water was coming out. I lowered mine to the point that I see a tiny amount of water on the concrete pad.
 
tamu432 said:
Did anyone come up with a fix for this situation? It would be ideal if it didn't leak as that's non conditioned water flowing into the basin.
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As i concluded before, there is no provision to seal that completely. Any type of seal you tried to rig in there would impede the wands ability to spin freely. Its just a cheap design.
Previously I made a upside down funnel that i placed on there to push the water out into the cooling pleats but it needs some tweaking. I'll work on my design this weekend and see if i can improve upon it for a viable solution.
 

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