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There is nothing better than being able to enjoy your outdoor pool year round. Despite certain areas getting colder in fall and winter, having a solar pool heater allows you to still take advantage of the luxurious pool. If you truly want to save money and feel you have what it takes to get the job done, you can build your own pool heater.
Before getting into how you can build your own heater for the pool, you should know how these solar heaters work. They run on a passive solar principle, which means the pool water runs through long lengths of flexible tubing. The pool water is then suspended in front of small reflectors to receive and transmit the warmth from the sun to the water in the tubing.
It is vital you protect the reflectors in some way from poor weather and a low wind chill. Without the reflectors, you will have an extremely difficult time efficiently warming the pool. The easiest way to protect the reflectors is to use polythene sheeting.
The reflectors themselves can be made out of halved storm water piping. From there, you will want to spray this water piping with chrome paint. The chrome paint will increase the reflective powers so you can heat the pool as much as you want.
Now that you have heat coming to the tubing from the reflectors, you will need to disperse the heat throughout the pool. In order to do this you will need a small pond pump or solar electric pump. The electric pump is certainly going to be more expensive, but it is the better route to take. It will last you longer and help the environment at the same time.
All of the material pertaining to the tubing, reflectors and cover should be assembled into a solar panel. The size of this depends on a number of factors including ease of handling and heating efficiency. Just to throw a number out there, a pool that holds six thousand gallons typically would want a panel that measures 11’4” by 4’8”.
You will want to place the panel of the solar pool heater in a way to get the most sun possible. You can often times get the best result by placing them on a fence vertically or on the roof. Placing them up in the middle of the day when the sun is at its peak will give you all you need to heat up your pool.
All that is left for you to build your own solar pool heater is to get going. Make sure to follow the instructions carefully and look at each diagram. If you do this, you will be on your way to enjoying the pool in winter.
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