Heating your swimming pool with solar power gathered from the sun is a great way to save money while keeping your swimming pool warm. The warmth you will reap from the sun depends on how deep your pool is, how much sun you get on a regular basis and how much money you want to put into purchasing the equipment needed to set up your own solar heating pool. You can buy black rubber hose at a pretty good price. As an alternate you can use black garden irrigation pipe as both of these black hoses have thin wall designs and this leads to quick heat transfer. Keep in mind that this type of pipe, which can be readily found in home supply stores, can kink up easily. Consider starting with 50-100 feet of pipe for your solar heating project.
Keep in mind, the more of the black hose that you use, the more water will flow through it and the warmer your pool will potentially become. When you're placing the pipes/hose set some parallel to each other as this will increase the amount of solar power you draw in - and store - from the sun. If your plan is to just purchase one long length of hose to use for the whole swimming pool, it might not be as efficient as you'd hoped and the water might not be as warm as you'd like.
If you have an in ground swimming pool, there will be a "hose bib" that runs around the side of the pool and is used to drain water. If your pool has this you can use it to collect the water through the hose and drain back into the pool - heated from the power of the sun. If you don't have the hose bib, you will want to purchase a small pump. The pump, which should work at a very slow speed, to and from the pool. Keep in mind, if the water isn't sitting in the hose, soaking up the sun, it won't do much to heat it before it's pumped back into the pool.
When you're in the process of figuring how much pipe to purchase or how to figure what the increase in temperature will be you will need to do some basic math and science experiments! Determine how long it takes your pipe to fill a one gallon milk carton or bucket and how many gallons of water your pool contains; once you've done this, measure the difference between the pool temperature and the temp of the water that's coming out of the hose. Still with me!? Now, subtract the temperature of the hose. With this method you can get an idea of how much of an impact you will be getting from your self-installed solar heating set up. As an example, if the difference is 10 degrees and your pool is 5,000 gallons, your solar system will add about .02 of a degree for each gallon of water that goes through the pipe.
Now, if you're wondering how long it will take to warm your pool by one degree-we're going to do some more math. Divide the number of seconds it takes to pump one gallon by the degree rise from your last mathematical equation. As an example, if it takes about 20 seconds to pump one gallon of water through your pipe system, it will take 10,000 seconds (about two and a half to three hours) to heat the water by one degree.
If you're looking to slow down or speed up the actual temperature of the water in the pool, you'll want to increase or decrease the speed with which the pump is forcing the water through.
Bottom line:
If you aren't using a thermal cover for your swimming pool, you will lose most of the momentum (heat) you've built up during the day.
The best alternative to installing your hose solar system, you can add some solar panels to amp up the warming up of your pool water.
If you're lucky and if you live in a warm climate, you might reap a five to 10 degree increase in your swimming pool's water temperature. The ideal water temperature for your swimming pool is between 80-85 degrees.
No comments:
Post a Comment