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Do Solar Panels Heat Your Pool Entirely?

16 years ago

We have outdated solar panels that do help with our gas bill, but are not all that efficient. Our neighbor claims that he only uses his solar panels and that sometimes his pool gets up to 90 degrees. I am not sure if I believe this. Anyway, we have hired a reputable company to come an install new solar panels to heat our 26,000 gallon pool. We just cut down a huge Douglas Fir that shaded our roof in order to maximize the solar panels effectivness. We are also in the proccess of digging up a new line for our gas (it began leaking last summer and the old line is beginning to go out so we decided to dig a new one). The solar guy says we shouldn't even bother because the panels should take care of us. What are your thoughts? We live in Oregon and do have a lot of overcast summer mornings.

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Comments (3)

smogtek
16 years ago
We use solar exclusively to heat our 25.000 gallon pool, but then we live in the Southern California desert where temps are consistently in the 90s to 100s from May through September.

We've had the pool up to 102 degrees using only the solar and a solar cover for six hours a day! Gotta keep a close eye on pool chemistry and watch out for algae!

Our solar consists of eleven (11) 4X12 Heliocol panels. That's 528 sq ft. Our pool is 512 sq ft, so we are over 100% solar coverage.

It also allows for about a 10 minute warm up for the spa when using the 400K BTU heater. During an hour in the spa, the heater cycles maybe twice for about 5 minutes which is nice.

Total cost was $6,100 installed on a 2-story home. I already had it plumbed to the eaves, so all they had to do was install the panels, 3-way valve, actuator and hook it up to the pre-existing Intellitouch before leak testing.

This is our third season. We turned the solar on two weeks ago with the water at 50 degrees and we are now at 80 degrees.

HTH

Matt
rossterman
16 years ago
I live in northern california near the coast (martinez/concond area) so not quite as warm as the desert but probably a little warmer than Oregon. We have never used the 400k btu heater to heat the pool. We have 10 4 x 12 panels for ~ 27k pool and it keeps the pool nice and warm and effectively doubles the swim season. My cover finally gave up the ghost this year on my 3 year old pool and we were still swimming during the warm spell two weeks ago with 82 degree water temp. In the summer we keep the pool in the low 80s and primarily use the solar to heat the hot tub as the pool stays warm on its own from June through Sept. Using a cover in conjunction with the heater has us swimming through October last year. My 2cents is to forgo the heater gas supply repair (unless it hooks to the hot tub) and spend the money to oversize the solar panel sq. footage like the last post (and I) did.
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The company that did the installation here in Columbia SC was Tablerock Technologies; they are located in upstate SC. See link below. Tone Nichols is the owner and installer. Just yesterday we got power to the pool equipment and Tone came down to set up the heating system. It is amazingly simple: a thermostat with a sensor drilled into the outake pipe and attached to a valve that diverts water to the panels on top of the roof. You can watch it turn. It also has cooling capacity, which essentially means running it at night when tempeartures outside drop. She advised that I would not need this but if we found it too warm in August she would come down and set it up. It will take a few days to get the pool all balanced and clean, and warm, and I've paid my last bill for heating it. Here is a link that might be useful: Tablerock Technologies
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Do like us poor people do.. buy a pool cover then spot glue some black plastic drop cloths on the bottom side.
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Thank you for your response, Gary. It may be more trouble than it is worth for heating the pool. I am intrigued by the comment that you made about solar space heating. We are currently using electric heat in the garage apartment on top of which these units are installed. If I bought a heat exchanger and a fan unit, could I hook these panels up for solar heat? I am assuming that there is a pump somewhere that was associated with the solar hot water system... or would that have been in the hot water tank? The space in the garage apartment is only about 350 sq feet. Would four 4'x8' panels produce enough heat to make an impact in this space? Gee, I would be very happy just to make a good dent in the electric bill!
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soundsgood, I have a 400k BTU natural gas heater for the spa. The propane (LP) heater will do the same exact thing except you will need an LP tank installed. I recommend going with the 400k BTU so it can heat the spa faster. I have the heat pump/ gas heater combo for my pool and spa and donÂt think its overkill at all. I want the pool warm when I want to go swimming so I am willing to pay the price to heat it. Heat pumps have come a long way as far as being efficient. When choosing a heat pump check the C.O.P. rating. C.O.P. stands for Coefficient Of Performance and the higher the C.O.P rating the more heat the unit will create using less energy. This is why I like the Summit or AquaCal heat pumps. Summit is a real good value and AquaCal makes some of the best heat pumps on the market but they are expensive. I also prefer heat pumps that have Titanium heat exchangers so the chemicals in the water do not corrode it. You should be able to get a Summit SUM 5 installed for less than a solar system. In Florida you will probably only use the heat pump for 2-3 months in the spring and 2-3 months in the fall. Heat pumps have thermostats just like an AC unit, you set the temperature and it turns on and off as needed to maintain the temperature so it does not run all the time either. Also, if you have solar or a pool heat pump and your water in the pool is warmer than it will take less gas to heat the spa because the temperature difference that you are heating will be less.
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jennifer_in_clyde
16 years ago
I'm in the same area as rossterman - and don't even have a gas heater installed (no attached spa) - I just use solar to heat my pool. This time of year (Feb-May) swimming is off and on - depends on the weather and how good I am about putting the cover back on the pool - we lose a LOT of heat and night without it as we aren't too far from the water and have pretty heavy breezes most nights. But the last two summers we swam to early November - and had water temps consistantly in the low to mid-80's. I've got about 90% coverage with Helicol panels and good sun exposure for them so that helps.

We are very happy with the solar.

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