HOMEMADE SOLAR POOL HEATER!!!!

[Guest]

This is the first time I am attempting to make a homemade solar pool heater. It is for an 18' round and 52" high above ground pool.

Here is a list of supplies I bought at home depot for the heater:

1 - 4'x8' 1/2" PT plywood
3 - 2"x4"x12' PT
1 - 48"x84" aluminum mesh screen
1 - box of 2" exterior screws
4 - 50' Goodyear black rubber garden hose
1 - bag of zip ties
1 - 3/4" PVC fitting with a male screw end
1 - 3/4" PVC fitting with a female screw end

So far I used 3 50' hoses but its getting late so I stopped. I will post pictures and/or a link to the pictures of the project.

I probably could have bought different size 2"x4"s but i just bought 3 12' ones. I will use the scraps that are left over from the 2"x4"s to put under the plywood so it is not just sitting on my roof, it will sit 1 1/2" off the roof.

I cut the plywood down to 4'x7' because the mesh screen only came in 4'x7'. I then cut two pieces of 2"x4" 48" long and two other pieces 81" long to make a short wall on top of the plywood to house all the hoses. Obviously I then screwed the 2"x4"s to the plywood so that they sat 3 1/2" straight up all the way around.

I used a hole cutter to cut two holes into the 2"x4" that goes across the bottom so that the hose can go through it. I used a 2" hole cutter because I had it laying around in the garage.

I then laid the hose in the box coming from the bottom left hole straight to the top then straight across to the far right and wrapped it back around so it touched the other part of the hose and you cannot see any plywood underneath. It may sound confusing but the pictures will bring it all together. LOL.

Periodically I drilled a hole on each side of two pieces of hose and used a zip tie to hold them down. I don't know for sure but I think when the water starts going through it it will make the hose move that is why I tied it down with zip ties.

I also connected another garden hose to the three I have set in the box to see how long it took for the water to go through it and it took 25 seconds for the water to travel through 150' of hose. If all goes as planned I will have 350' of hose and it should take about 60 seconds or more, the longer the better, since my pool pump will be pumping it and not my garden hose for the water to travel through all the hoses

Tomorrow I will continue and hopefully finish my project.

[meatloaf]

I have also experimented with solor heating. Currently I am using 1000 ft of 5/8" black plastic tubing. I made 2, 4' x 4" wood boxes, painted them black inside and and out - each contain 200' of tubing in a coil covered with glass. Each box is tilted to 45* and can be adjusted to catch optimal sunlight. The remaining 600' of tubing is divided up into 4 - 33 gallon plastic garbage cans. Each can has approx 150' coiled from bottom to top and covered with glass. I put a "tee" in the return line and a valve leading to the solor collectors so I can regulate the water flow. I also ran a seperate return line from the collectors to the pool that returns the heated water to approx 1' from the bottom of the pool. Currently I can get a 5* rise in water temperature with an outside temp of 75*. (2/9/2008).