My homemade pool heater

Electric heaters, gas heaters, heat pumps,
solar heaters, geothermal heating, solar pool
covers and wood-burning pool heating equipment.
Petter_Nor
I'm new here
I'm new here
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon 10 Dec, 2012 13:06
My Pool: 10X3, 15500 g/h gas water pump and 400000Btu+ diesel heater.
Location: Norway

My homemade pool heater

Postby Petter_Nor » Mon 10 Dec, 2012 14:59

Hi! Thought i would share some information about my homemade pool heater. The heater is build to heat up a 12ftx32in, 1828 gal pool which we are going to use on new years eve. The party is up i the mountains of Norway and we can expect temperatures as low as -4 Fahrenheit. I did the same thing in march this year, but with a pool half the size and a 25kw webasto diesel heater, but with a bigger pool and lower temperatures i needed a bigger pool heater.

Got my hands on a oil burner, the big kind normally mounted on furnaces, with a max output of 330kw or 1100000Btu. But with the nozzles mounted now, it makes about 200kw. Made a custom burn chamber out of old water heater tanks (got them for free and they are stainless steel). Basic idea is one small tank which the burner burns into, welded inside a bigger tank, water flows between the tanks. Inside the small tank is a "burner tube" with a smaller diameter then the tank so the flame has to reach the end, goes around the burner tube and out the exhaust in the bottom. The exhaust goes trough the "water jacket" and out.
It's not a very effective design, heated about 90gal from 41 to 120 Fahrenheit in 5 min. Output effect is roughly 130kw or 440000Btu, so 65% effective. The exhaust gets red hot:P But i think it will do the job!

Link to youtube video of it during the final test: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJNSLRS5 ... e=youtu.be

Pictures are soon to come!

Petter


Petter_Nor
I'm new here
I'm new here
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon 10 Dec, 2012 13:06
My Pool: 10X3, 15500 g/h gas water pump and 400000Btu+ diesel heater.
Location: Norway

My homemade pool heater

Postby Petter_Nor » Mon 10 Dec, 2012 18:16

Some pictures
Attachments
PA270217_600x450.JPG
PA270217_600x450.JPG (90.85 KiB) Viewed 12059 times
PA270216_600x450.JPG
PA270216_600x450.JPG (91.14 KiB) Viewed 12038 times
PA270004_600x450.JPG
PA270004_600x450.JPG (88.92 KiB) Viewed 12041 times
Petter_Nor
I'm new here
I'm new here
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon 10 Dec, 2012 13:06
My Pool: 10X3, 15500 g/h gas water pump and 400000Btu+ diesel heater.
Location: Norway

My homemade pool heater

Postby Petter_Nor » Fri 11 Jan, 2013 10:41

We did bring the heater and pool to the cabin on new years eve and it was a success!:) Despite the fact that everything that could go wrong did go wrong! First the pool broke, the lining didn't cope with the cold so we got a 1 meter crack during assembly, fixed that with a big tarp instead. Had some problems with the waterpump, got a 6,5 hp 3 inch pump for the heater, 30000liter/hour. Then we accedently got water in the burner control, so we had to mount plugs to everything that needed power on the burner to work, then plug them in in the right order to ignite and stuff. And then the diesel filter clogged up, so had to remove that, but then the wiring to the electrodes had melted. So we tossed a firework ingniter into the chamber and made it fire again:) After all that it tok 2,5 hours to heat about 6000 liter from 1 to 45 Celsius. At the best it only took 2,5 min to heat 1 Celcius:D. The pump is to small tough, we had a 2-3 Celsius heat difference on the in and outtake on the burner. And the burner "kettle" itself is way to small, we started melting stuff in the diesel burner. It got a lot of potential! Used between 50 to 60 liter diesel from 1 to 45 Celsius with an outside temperature of -5. The pool held a temperature of 18 the next day, used 30 liter to heat it up again. Added some pictures of the hole thing, it was a lot of effort to dig the hole for the pool, a good 4-5 feet of snow. It wasn't a lot of snow under the pool when we packed it all up;)
Attachments
DSC_0232 (500x331).jpg
DSC_0232 (500x331).jpg (148.06 KiB) Viewed 11955 times
DSC_0167 (500x331).jpg
DSC_0167 (500x331).jpg (151.52 KiB) Viewed 11955 times
DSC_0164 (500x331).jpg
DSC_0164 (500x331).jpg (128.19 KiB) Viewed 11948 times
Petter_Nor
I'm new here
I'm new here
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon 10 Dec, 2012 13:06
My Pool: 10X3, 15500 g/h gas water pump and 400000Btu+ diesel heater.
Location: Norway

My homemade pool heater

Postby Petter_Nor » Fri 11 Jan, 2013 18:02

Little video of the setup http://youtu.be/m3KorYz0ob4
Petter_Nor
I'm new here
I'm new here
Posts: 5
Joined: Mon 10 Dec, 2012 13:06
My Pool: 10X3, 15500 g/h gas water pump and 400000Btu+ diesel heater.
Location: Norway

My homemade pool heater

Postby Petter_Nor » Thu 02 May, 2013 06:01

It's a open system, it can't build up pressure like a normal house water heater;)

Return to “Solar & Pool Heaters”

Who is online at the Pool Help Forum

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 6 guests