Solar Heating a 12' pool....

tiggerpud

My daughter has a round 12' pool which we would like to warm up a little. I've seen a couple of ideas such as Solar Pods & also the black matting which water is pumped through. Has anyone experience of either of these? We realise it won't make the pool really warm (and it would need to be VERY warm for me to go anywhere near it!) but just a few degrees more would make it a little more enjoyable and stop her turning blue!

Any ideas/comments welcomed.

Cardew

tiggerpud wrote: »

My daughter has a round 12' pool which we would like to warm up a little. I've seen a couple of ideas such as Solar Pods & also the black matting which water is pumped through. Has anyone experience of either of these? We realise it won't make the pool really warm (and it would need to be VERY warm for me to go anywhere near it!) but just a few degrees more would make it a little more enjoyable and stop her turning blue!

Any ideas/comments welcomed.

There are many ways to solar heat pools which can be reasonably effective in UK - if you only want to heat a couple of degrees.

However it is not as simple as it would appear. You have to have some electronics to sense when the water temperature in the panels/black matting is higher than the pool temperature.

Otherwise you will be pumping water to the panels and they will act as a radiator!!!!

Bear in mind that the solar industry has a well deserved reputation for being modern day double glazing salesmen.;) So beware!

thenudeone

I use this http://www.solarmatt.com/ which is very good on a good sunny day (it throws out much more heat than my 3kW electric heater), but most days aren't that sunny

It's possible to buy a 3.5kW output heat pump for about £400. That would use less than 1kW of electricity.

tiggerpud

Hmmm. not sure its worth paying £509 (starting price from what I can see) to heat a £50 pool! I'm happy to pay about £100 for something that will not cost much to run (or better still I can use to soak up my excess PV output).....

I saw a previous poster mention a 1kw aquarium heater - any thoughts on that at all???

thenudeone

A 1kW heater will not make much of a dent in the temperature of a 12ft pool unless it was run 24/7 for several days, but with excess solar PV available it would be effectively free to run during the day so possibly worth a shot.

However, virtually all pool heaters are 3kW and bigger. 3kW is the smallest size that makes a noticeable difference in temperature but can still be plugged into a standard 13A socket. Finding a 1kW heater will be problematic.

Here is a very similar thread with some ideas:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=3323384&highlight=