How to add a Solar Heater to Your Swimming Pool

Why not let your pool go green? Not with algae - but with a solar heating system!

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A Solar Heating System

1. Why not use the power of the sun to heat your pool? A solar cover utilizes that power but can be a pain to take off and put on if you don't have a reel system. A solar heater takes the energy produced by the sun and can warm your water by as much as ten degrees!

2. If you have never thought about it before, then why not consider it now! The whole planet is trying to go green, so why not you and your swimming pool? It's pretty simple to do. All you need is a filter system with at least a 1 h.p. pump and a solar heating kit.

3. The instructions will come with the kit, but I want to give you an idea of how the solar heater works. A typical solar heater will measure about 2- 1/2'wide x 6' long. It comes rolled up like a mat, but quickly unrolls and can be placed near your pool on the lawn. It is comprised of a series of thin channels that form one complete circuit or tunnel if you will.
   What you do is hook this up to your circulating system just after the water has passed through your pump and filter.
   Before it returns to your pool, it is forced to travel back and forth through these black plastic channels that have been absorbing the heat of the day.

4. As the cool water goes through the heated channeling that heat is transferred to the water raising its temperature.
   Once it exits the solar heater it resumes its journey through your return inlet hose and goes back into the pool. The cumulative effect of all of your pool water coursing through the solar heater can make a marked and very noticeably difference in pool temperature.

Tips & Warnings

• If you use a solar heating system, make sure to place it somewhere out of the way, but still close enough to the pool. If necessary, you may have to get several longer lengths of hose to make it adapt to your landscape.
• The black plastic can break, so do not let anyone walk on it or drive anything over it like a riding mower.
• A roof kit can be purchased so you can put it on a nearby roof to catch the absorbed heat. Just remember that your pump has to have enough power to push that water through this system and then back to your pool, so it shouldn't be too far away or you'll lose pressure and that will effect your circulation.
• The kit comes with a bypass valve that you should turn when its cloudy out so that your water bypasses the cool plastic of the solar heater on that particular day.
• Make sure that all connections are very tight. A hose connection that comes apart when you're not around can be a very costly problem. That should not disuade you from going green because you already have hose connections that could fail, but haven't right? So, we're talking about only two more which I'm sure you can handle!