How does a solar pool heater work.
Do solar pool heaters work at night.
Cutting down old man oak isn t much of an option if your blood is truly green.
A solar blanket helps to both heat the water and retain the heat at night or prevent heat loss from cool air temps or heat robbing winds.
I decided that a solar heater that i could mount outside the shadow of the house would be just the thing to bring the water temperature up to more bearable levels.
Solar blankets will add heat to the pool to a greater or lesser degree depending on 1 amount of surface coverage and 2 amount of direct daily sunshine.
The only difference is that solar pool heaters will only work at full capacity when it s hot out otherwise its efficiency will significantly diminish when it s overcast.
Note how your solar panels are oriented how much sunlight do you get.
Solar pool heaters are undoubtedly the most inexpensive pool heating mechanisms available out there and they work just as well as any other heat pump.
Directly convert solar radiation into usable heat.
Again it all depends on how many panels you have and how much sun exposure you get.
Prevent heat from escaping your pool.
A solar water heater lives about 20 years.
As the warm water flows through the cooler panel it chills the water to a more agreeable temperature allowing for comfortable morning swims.
So when you consider the issues of low temperature and limited sun exposure it s easy to see why many pool owners use solar pool heaters as back up to more on demand heating systems like gas heaters or pool heat pumps which can heat your pool at outdoor temperatures of 30 degrees.
Solar pool heaters generally work in one of three ways.
In our previous article on solar water heater costs and savings we determined that by taking advantage of federal and local rebates a solar water heater easily pays for itself in the long run and then some.
Instead these crafty folk run their solar heaters at night when the temperature is significantly cooler.
In an in ground pool a cover can increase the water temperature by 5 degrees f for each 12 hours of coverage.
And solar heaters work well in all parts of north america.
If you can put an amount of solar panels equal to at least 50 of the pool surface area and mount them in a southerly direction you ll have more heat than you can imagine.
Solar potential when the pump is on.
However this relies on a lot of direct sunlight as well as a battery array to store the power to continue functioning into the night.
Since we usually don t get into the pool on weekdays until after work this made for some pretty chilly swims even when the air temperature was in the 80 s.
If you have an above ground pool the heat loss is much greater you need a collector with more surface area.
Otherwise choose a larger collector.
