DIY Solar Pool Heater!

SO we have this pool, it's 12 foot diameter and about 2.5 feet deep. It's pretty impossible to keep the water in it warm because it ...

SO we have this pool, it's 12 foot diameter and about 2.5 feet deep. It's pretty impossible to keep the water in it warm because it gets so chilly here at night (that's the mountains for ya). The pool is on the deck, and during the day it gets HOT HOT sun all day long. It helps a little bit, but not enough. So I started looking into small heaters last night, thinking I could just get a couple large fish tank heaters. I quickly realized that there was a lot of math involved to figure out just how many heaters I need, and it was looking like it was going to be quite a few. Lots of money and I don't think it would have worked that great. But then I stumbled upon a DIY Solar Pool Heater. I started looking into it thinking "I could totally do this and it probably wouldn't cost that much!" Then the more I looked into that (regarding pump sizes and blah blah blah) I got confused. So I kind of forgot about it. So then later the next day (today) me and Jeremy were sitting on the deck and something reminded me of the heater idea so I mentioned it, thinking he would just be like "Oh that's nice"...and not want to help with it. BUT- his eyes kinda got big and he was all pumped up about it and went to the store to get what we needed within the hour! Then came home and built the whole thing! WOWWW! I planned on doing a tutorial, but realized really quickly that he probably wouldn't want to stop to take pics all the time and when he gets involved in a project you kind of don't want to bother him.

So here it is! It's supposed to be sunny ALLLL day tomorrow so we'll see how well it works! :)


All we ended up doing is as follows:
1. Painted plywood black.
2. Connected black tubing up to the pump that is already filtering the pool water.
3. Laid tubing on top of black boards.
4. The end!

SO EASY! :) :) And it's not using any more electricity than before because it's solar heated!




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8 comments

  1. oh my gosh that looks awesome- i think i need to come swim in your pool!

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  2. I have the same kind of pool and tried changing the hoses to black. They were in the sun, but not on plywood. Mine didn't seem to make much difference. Did the plywood help?

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  3. @Joan

    I think the plywood def makes a difference...the black attracts the heat and probably helps keeps the tubes warmer.

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  4. @Joan

    SO well!!! It gets pretty chilly here at night, so we couldn't ever keep it warm, but once we built this it def made a difference! The water was so much more bearable!

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  5. it worked SO well!! I live close to the mountains in Colorado and it gets pretty chilly at night, and the heater was amazing :)

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  6. Mine worked great, but i'm also pretty high in elevation so we're closer to the sun and the sun gets HOT when it's out...I think they plywood def helped, it got super hot, like, hot enough you couldn't really touch it!

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  7. How long do you leave your pump running?

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