Would this work to cool a pool?

[Lershac]

I have been to a friends pool with these and they seem to work well. It was ~97 outside and the pool was 85.

http://www.mistcooling.com/poolcooler.htm

 

[Bama Rambler]

They actually work very well. If you look around the forum you can find plenty of people that have made homemade versions of the same thing. A lot of people use them for aeration but they also cool due to increasing evaporation.

They work better in dry areas but still work pretty good in humid areas.

 

[jark87]

I have the mist cooler in the link posted by lershac. No question it has kept my pool cooler than in years past. However, I'm in the DFW area where we are in the middle of 15+ days of 100+ temps with no end in sight. Pool water is 91, which is no longer refreshing. It's ok to swim in, especially since the air temp is so high, but I'd love something that could keep the temp below 90, preferably around 85. As a point of comparison, I'm sure my pool water temp would be at least 95 without the mister. I've been considering the glacier, but it's roughly $3k installed. If I knew for a fact that it would get my pool back to the mid-80s, I'd gladly spend the money!

 

[Nubo]

I've been thinking (always a dangerous thing). I have heard people with solar panels can run them at night to provide some cooling for the pool water. What if you have solar panels set up in a heavily shaded area and run them night or day? Would that create a cooling effect? I have tried the fountain but it doesn't provide much of a drop unless you are standing under it.

Our water gets up to 90 or more in the summer and a chiller is cost prohibitive at this time.

Heat transfer is proportional to the difference in temperature. If your pool is over 90, your daytime ambient temperatures are probably too warm to be of much benefit even in the shade. By far bulk of cooling would still happen when the sun is down or quite low in the sky. So to me it would make sense to install the panels somewhere where they could function as solar heat to extend the season when needed, and pump from late evening to early morning, for example.

Of course if you're not interested at all in heat, it doesn't matter where they go but I'd still not waste the electricity to pump 7x24 when there's little chance of cooling, and of course if the ambient gets over 90 you will still be heating (which you don't want) even in the shade.

Another thing to consider is that any wind at night will go a long way to help bleed heat from the panels. A spot that is in shade in the daytime could tend to cut off any night breezes if close to hedges, trees, etc...

There are controllers that will open and close the valve to direct water through the panels at the appropriate times to achieve whatever temperature you want (or get as close as possible in the conditions). So, if you want cooling, the valves would open when the water in the panels was below the pool temp, etc...

 

[ttu1990]

I see that I am not alone in the world of HOT pool temps! The other day, my pool hit 100.2 degrees! I have a 20x40 saltwater, pool with an 8.5' deep end, and an automatic pool cover. Thus, it does stay covered all the time unless we are swimming. The cover does hold the heat at night, but kind of shades it during the day. I say that, becuase if I uncover the pool in the morning, and leave it uncovered the entire day, you can watch the pool temp rise almost twice as fast with it uncovered, as it does if it is covered. Anyway, back to the topic at had, "Would this work to cool a pool?"...I have an idea to use my WELL, that I use to water the yard, as a geothermal cooling source, to cool the water in the pool. I was thinking I could run a closed loop of pipe, 100' down into the well, and circulate my pool water into that loop. The water table is at about 40' and my pump head is at 100'deep and is nowhere near the bottom. The water that comes out is very cold during the summer. Running a loop 100' down and 100' back up, with the water table at 40', would give me about 120' of thermal transfer in the cold water of the well. Do you think it would be worth it? The pipe I would use would be the same as the what is in the will now... 100' of 1.25" HDPE. It is pretty thin walled and very flexable, and easy to work with. I have had to replace the well pump twice, so I know what is involved from that end... I was thinking I would probably need another water pump to get that water down the well and back up, mounted near my other pool pump, and plumbed with some bypass/diversion valves. Thoughts?

 

[bcobb]

Just saw this thread and have been contributing to another (dane-s-how-to-for-a-quick-easy-pool-cooler-t36086.html), but I have to say, I'm very interested and will be following! Can't wait to hear some scientific results on the pool cooler (mister). Below is the one I just made/installed.

18x42 with 4 returns and a Pentair Intelliflo variable speed pump make it tricky to get enough height out of the stream. It's a little bit of a balance between cranking the pump up and closing off returns. If I can find any concrete results, I'll let you know. Right now I'm just working on a baseline.
Keep up the good work!
-Bryan
Union, KY

 

[smccull]

I would keep the cover closed in the day and open at night - should cool off nicely.

I see that I am not alone in the world of HOT pool temps! The other day, my pool hit 100.2 degrees! I have a 20x40 saltwater, pool with an 8.5' deep end, and an automatic pool cover. Thus, it does stay covered all the time unless we are swimming. The cover does hold the heat at night, but kind of shades it during the day. I say that, becuase if I uncover the pool in the morning, and leave it uncovered the entire day, you can watch the pool temp rise almost twice as fast with it uncovered, as it does if it is covered. Anyway, back to the topic at had, "Would this work to cool a pool?"...I have an idea to use my WELL, that I use to water the yard, as a geothermal cooling source, to cool the water in the pool. I was thinking I could run a closed loop of pipe, 100' down into the well, and circulate my pool water into that loop. The water table is at about 40' and my pump head is at 100'deep and is nowhere near the bottom. The water that comes out is very cold during the summer. Running a loop 100' down and 100' back up, with the water table at 40', would give me about 120' of thermal transfer in the cold water of the well. Do you think it would be worth it? The pipe I would use would be the same as the what is in the will now... 100' of 1.25" HDPE. It is pretty thin walled and very flexable, and easy to work with. I have had to replace the well pump twice, so I know what is involved from that end... I was thinking I would probably need another water pump to get that water down the well and back up, mounted near my other pool pump, and plumbed with some bypass/diversion valves. Thoughts?

 

[Plankton]

100.2 Degrees!!! OMG!! The highest temp my pool ever reached was 88 and that was two years ago! Last year I never made it past 83 all summer, this year we have not made it past 85 and that was pushing it! One day only! I have no solar so it's all Mother Nature.

 

[civicturbo]

Have you thought about Geothermal.
Go down 5 to 10' and you have a constant around 55 degrees.
Lay in a bunch of 1.5" PVC, and you can cool in the summer and heat in the winter.

Hey, :idea: the bottom of the pools we build are that deep. What if we put a grid of pipes under the pool for this purpose before we shot it.
By golly I am a genius.
Patent office here I come.

Now that's great thinking I like it!

 

[harleysilo]

I wonder how much ice (wet) it would take to make a significant temp change in say a 15000 gal ag pool.

Well you significant heat absorber there would be the transformation energy it takes to actually change the ice from a solid to a liquid.

So, an example...

for a 15000 gal pool, thats 15000gal X 3.7854118 kg/gal = 56781 kg (approx) or 56781000g (approx)

Lets say the starting temperature of the pool is 92deg F
Target temperature is 85 deg f
We will ignore the heat loss/gain through the sides and bottom of the pool for this example, as well as to-from the air.

Change in temperature desired is 7 deg F
Thats 33.33 deg C to 29.44 deg C a change of 3.89 deg C

lets also assume that the ice is at -10 deg C starting.

The target temperature for the ice is also 85 deg F (29.44 deg C)

The specific heat of water is 4.186 joule/gram °C

The heat of transformation for water ice is 333 kJ/kg or 333 J/G

The specific heat of water type ice is 2.1 j/g °C at 1 atmosphere (we are going to assume sea level here as well)

so we are going to wind up with some unknown mass amount at 29.44 °C . that mass will be Z

We need an energy budget, so taking water through a 3.89 °C change will require 56781000g (mass of pool water) X 4.186 J/g deg C X 3.89 = 924595685 joules to be absorbed by the ice on it way to 85 deg F

so we have 3 components to getting the ice to 85 deg F. Heating the ice to 0 deg C, melting the ice, then taking the now cold water to 85 deg F.

heating the ice 2.1 j/g deg C X 10 deg C X Z g = 21Z
melting the ice 333 j/g X Zg = 333Z
heating the cold water 4.186 j/g deg C X 29.44 X Zg = 1232.3584Z

Add all those up =1536.3584Z which has to equal 924595685, so solving for Z is 601810g (rounding)

so thats 601 Kg of ice.

or 1326.7617354 lb of ice.

if you buy it in 20 lb bags, thats 66 bags of ice. :blah:

In your spare time could you change this example to address gallons of chilled water? Many of us are using/have been using pool coolers based on the fountains and the like. IF i knew the trade off between temp change in the returning water and the volume of water need to achieve X degree in pool temp change, i could determine the optimum design...i understand there are a ton of variables...air temp/time of day run/humidity etc. so maybe it would be too difficult to design one that consistently produced water X degrees cooler than the pool.

EDIT also how would you take into account that this is not adding water via the ice example, it's cooling a portion of the existing water.....

 

[Lershac]

Well I could put together something, but it would not lead to an optimal design equation. It's pretty open ended. The more water you coud get to evap, the cooler you would get the remaining water, to a point of diminishing returns.

The humidity would be your ruling factor, and it would not be an issue to account for the lost water, just another equation.

But like I said, just build it as big as your wife will let you and run it as long as you can!

But I said blech and just bought a heat pump. 85 on a 100+ deg day after mowing the yard feels like ice water heaven. Plus the envious neighbors with hot pools!

 

[Just-a-PB]

The real answer is build deep. The deeper it is, the cooler it stays. Mine is 10' and I catch my wife turning on the heatpump in the middle of summer to warm it up. Silly girl, like the 4 ac's on the house arent enough usage.

 

[Speedo]

The real answer is build deep. The deeper it is, the cooler it stays. Mine is 10' and I catch my wife turning on the heatpump in the middle of summer to warm it up. Silly girl, like the 4 ac's on the house arent enough usage.

:bowdown:

Would love to see pics

 

[Just-a-PB]

My little baby.
1400 sq ft, 65,000 gallons.

[attachment=1:3tgfp14f]4242a.jpg[/attachment:3tgfp14f]

Spa
[attachment=0:3tgfp14f]4239a.jpg[/attachment:3tgfp14f]

You can see a overhead in the "my pool from space" post.

 

[Speedo]

Wow - you're amazing dude! Are you hiring!!? :lol:

 

[Shap]

Sweet Yard! I just ordered two of these, lets see how they handle the Arizona Summer heat.

 

[woodyp]

My "flower" aerator can drop my pool 5 degrees overnite easy. Shoots up to the roof line!

 

[smforte]

OMG...looks like something out of a magazine! Beautiful!

 

[Divin Dave]

Excellent Post!!!!
I dig stuff like this !

Well you significant heat absorber there would be the transformation energy it takes to actually change the ice from a solid to a liquid.

So, an example...

for a 15000 gal pool, thats 15000gal X 3.7854118 kg/gal = 56781 kg (approx) or 56781000g (approx)

Lets say the starting temperature of the pool is 92deg F
Target temperature is 85 deg f
We will ignore the heat loss/gain through the sides and bottom of the pool for this example, as well as to-from the air.

Change in temperature desired is 7 deg F
Thats 33.33 deg C to 29.44 deg C a change of 3.89 deg C

lets also assume that the ice is at -10 deg C starting.

The target temperature for the ice is also 85 deg F (29.44 deg C)

The specific heat of water is 4.186 joule/gram °C

The heat of transformation for water ice is 333 kJ/kg or 333 J/G

The specific heat of water type ice is 2.1 j/g °C at 1 atmosphere (we are going to assume sea level here as well)

so we are going to wind up with some unknown mass amount at 29.44 °C . that mass will be Z

We need an energy budget, so taking water through a 3.89 °C change will require 56781000g (mass of pool water) X 4.186 J/g deg C X 3.89 = 924595685 joules to be absorbed by the ice on it way to 85 deg F

so we have 3 components to getting the ice to 85 deg F. Heating the ice to 0 deg C, melting the ice, then taking the now cold water to 85 deg F.

heating the ice 2.1 j/g deg C X 10 deg C X Z g = 21Z
melting the ice 333 j/g X Zg = 333Z
heating the cold water 4.186 j/g deg C X 29.44 X Zg = 1232.3584Z

Add all those up =1536.3584Z which has to equal 924595685, so solving for Z is 601810g (rounding)

so thats 601 Kg of ice.

or 1326.7617354 lb of ice.

if you buy it in 20 lb bags, thats 66 bags of ice. :blah:

 

[nehasns]

Mistcooling’s pool cooler is an ideal & cost-effective way to make comfortably cool of warm swimming pools water. Swimming pool cooler is a simple design to solve the problem of hot pool water. Pool cooler is a solution that is affordable, easy to install, zero operating cost, maintenance free and inexpensive to operate.