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

I refer to the post of david_cary wherein you’re talking about 6.4kw system that you’re installing with a savings of $700/year. Forgive me but I’m novice when it comes to cooling and heating or solar. May I ask if the 6.4kw system is a solar panel system? I figure it is since you mention about a 13kw system would need 52 panels. If this is so, it gives me an idea what to ask when the solar engineer guy will visit me to discuss about installing solar panels. Nevada has a good incentive on solar panels. The $25k net that my neighbor is paying for their solar panels is already net of the Nevada incentive. The old a/c that I have is 11 years old and the brand is York. The smaller one I know is 4 ton. However, I don’t know the bigger one. By the way, my electrict bill of $2,000/year includes the swimming pool and spa filter pump that runs 12 hours/day throughout the year. Hence, I thought, I don’t spend on electricity as much as I did when I was in NJ. With solar system, an electric bill of $10/month or $120/year must be a good investment. My neighbor’s electric bill during summer goes up to $600 in a month because she said that her husband wants it very cold while my highest bill during summer is $411 in a month. If she spends more on electric bill and she will only be paying $10/month with the solar system, will my bill be less than $10/month comparing her electric bill and my electric bill without solar? In other words, is it still based on the consumption? As for the post of mike_home, I will start looking for authorized dealers of Carrier to see the small crack on the heat exchanger as well as get an estimate for a new system if I need one. I had read some post regarding which brand to choose. Hence, I think I’ll start with Carrier. Does the brand don’t matter which State you live. As you know I live in the sun city Las Vegas wherein the temperature could go up to 118 degrees during summer. Last year, I was told by the heating, cooling & plumbing company that maintains our system that if you live in Nevada you need some special brand that could hold up the outside temperature. The company had recommended Goodman last summer when I was told that either we fix that part (don’t remember the name) that holds the Freon from leaking. Another HVAC and plumbing person told me that the freon does not leak that much but instead sold us 2 units of fan motor for the 2 a/c and change the capacitors for $1,300. You see if you know nothing about a/c or furnace, this heating, cooling and plumbing people will rip you off. Am I right? As the post of energy_rater_regarding the $10/month with solar system installed, I met a person year ago while I was in line inside the supermarket who was chatting with me while waiting in line who told me that he had solar panels installed which cost $100k. He got rebate from Nevada $40K and his electric bill is $10/month. Looks like that there is some truth to the $10/month; but I I think $60K net is too much. Next time if the heating and cooling company tells me that my system needs something that I have to spend, I have to go to this forum to get advise before I spend on heating and cooling. Thank you all for the advise/comments. I appreciate it.

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

You need to give the physical demensions of the waterfeatures to get a more accurate assessment of the gallons per minute requirements. The variable speed Pentair