Solar Pool Heaters – Save Energy, Swim More Often
Posted by Norman Fong
Swimming Pools are one of the least green elements of a home. Unfortunately they consume lots of power, water, and harmful chemicals. Heating a pool with a traditional gas pool heater can cost hundreds of dollars for a couple hours of fun.
Solar Pool Heaters harness the power of the sun to heat your pool. They are essentially rubber tubes laid on your roof, through which your pools water passes through. The warmth of the sun heats up the water. Most solar pool heater systems utilize your existing pool pump to push the water into the water coils on your roof. Some situations will require a booster pump. These systems can cost from $2000 to $5000.
These systems include a Solar Pool Heater controller that you can set to turn off the system or prevent water over a certain temperature from getting circulated. Solar blankets that lay on top of your pool do not work very well. We could only coax a couple degrees out of them. Solar blankets also deteriorate in a couple years.
Our solar pool heater system has worked well, heating water well into the 80′s and easily extending the swimming pools season. One downside is that you may hear pool water gurgling up to your roof when it is running.
Also consider using a swimming pool cover to reduce the run time. A variable speed pool pump also saves energy.
Filed under: Alternative Energy, Conservation, Eco Friendly, Effort, Environment, Green, Home, Kids, Medium, Money, Reduce, Shopping, Solar | Tags: Solar Pool Heater
If you enjoyed this post, be sure to subscribe to our RSS feed.
3 Responses to “Solar Pool Heaters – Save Energy, Swim More Often”
Leave a Reply
Please do not put your URL in the comment text and please use your PERSONAL name or initials and not your business name.
May 5th, 2010 at 1:09 pm
[...] consider using a swimming pool cover to reduce the run time of your variable speed pool pump and a solar pool heater to use the sun to warm your swimming pool. [...]
May 10th, 2010 at 5:35 am
Thanks for your post. I especially loved the fact that you mentioned that solar pool heaters are essentially rubber tubes laid on your roof, allowing water to pass through and get heated up.
One thing that I often wondered about solar pool heating was whether you can control the temperature. So, I’m glad that you mentioned in the post that you have a solar pool heater controller that allows you determine how hot to allow your water to get. Great post.
June 4th, 2010 at 8:42 am
[...] but at slower speeds, reducing power use. Upgrade to one when your current one fails. Install a solar pool heater system, they work great. [...]