Garden Pool Help....(above ground)
Discussion
I've been thinking about this myself as I plan to get an above ground pool.
Have you ever turned on a garden hose that has been laying in the sun for 10 mins? The water is scalding hot, so my thoughts were to plumb in a radiator that has been painted black into the pool filter circuit.
Admittedly this will only heat the water if there is direct sunlight, which shouldn't be too much of a problem if you cover the pool at night to retain what heat you have acquired, and it's cheap!
Have you ever turned on a garden hose that has been laying in the sun for 10 mins? The water is scalding hot, so my thoughts were to plumb in a radiator that has been painted black into the pool filter circuit.
Admittedly this will only heat the water if there is direct sunlight, which shouldn't be too much of a problem if you cover the pool at night to retain what heat you have acquired, and it's cheap!
We have an above ground 18ft - dont bother with anything you'd get at toys r us. The volume you are trying to heat is HUGE. Go to a PROPER pool shop and look at what they use for pools in terms of heating and filtering......we did, and gave up. Now we just dont heat it and (the kids) couldnt care less - they use it daily from may-sep, rain or shine.
Most cost effiecient way of getting the water temp up so one doesn't get three adam's apples is to use a solar cover.
The heat gain during the day is modest but for preventing overnight loss they are great.
Even if you have a massive heater pumping mega BTUs or coulombs in you will still get heat loss at night.
As a rule I use 75F as my cut off temp, if it's gonna drop overnight below 75 them I roll out the cover and leave it in place til at least 10.30 the next morning so the pump will have circulated the top 4 inches of water throught the pool. (by 10.30 the top 4 inches will be 90F)
I manage to maintain a temp of 82 -88F quite easily.
A solar cover is heavy duty bubble wrap.
The heat gain during the day is modest but for preventing overnight loss they are great.
Even if you have a massive heater pumping mega BTUs or coulombs in you will still get heat loss at night.
As a rule I use 75F as my cut off temp, if it's gonna drop overnight below 75 them I roll out the cover and leave it in place til at least 10.30 the next morning so the pump will have circulated the top 4 inches of water throught the pool. (by 10.30 the top 4 inches will be 90F)
I manage to maintain a temp of 82 -88F quite easily.
A solar cover is heavy duty bubble wrap.
allgonepetetong said:
I've been thinking about this myself as I plan to get an above ground pool.
Have you ever turned on a garden hose that has been laying in the sun for 10 mins? The water is scalding hot, so my thoughts were to plumb in a radiator that has been painted black into the pool filter circuit.
Admittedly this will only heat the water if there is direct sunlight, which shouldn't be too much of a problem if you cover the pool at night to retain what heat you have acquired, and it's cheap!
My farther in law uses the hose pipe method to heat his large (about 4x8 meter) above ground pool to very good effect, he runs it through his green house and has a pump that comes on for 15 mins every 15 mins. We were in it a few weeks back when we had the sun and the water temp was up to 36" and where the hose enters the pool was almost to hot to stand in front of!Have you ever turned on a garden hose that has been laying in the sun for 10 mins? The water is scalding hot, so my thoughts were to plumb in a radiator that has been painted black into the pool filter circuit.
Admittedly this will only heat the water if there is direct sunlight, which shouldn't be too much of a problem if you cover the pool at night to retain what heat you have acquired, and it's cheap!
Oh he uses a solar cover as well.
Paul
Edited by Paulbav on Friday 13th August 21:57
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