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Heating Your Swimming Pool With Solar Energy Heaters...In states such as California, New Mexico, Texas and in countries like Australia and South Africa there are numerous homes that have open-air swimming pools. These places receive good sunshine and have very warm temperatures. However the swimming pools remain far too cold for swimming during most times of the year. The pools need to be heated for them to be comfortable to swim in. The areas mentioned above experience sunshine for most parts of the day and you can use this sunshine as a source of energy for your water heater. You can thus collect the sun's heat by using a solar pool heater for heating the water. Introduction to Solar Pool Heaters...Solar pool heaters have a flat energy collector which has many solar heater cells (similar to small black glass windows from a distance). These black glass windows (solar cells) gather the sun's rays and changes the rays into electricity and this electric power energy in turn is used to heat water pumped through the pool solar heater system. The solar pool heaters collector is usually mounted on the roof of the house facing South in the northern hemisphere and North in the southern hemisphere. This allows the solar collector to collect more rays efficiently. So in a nutshell a solar pool heater, is a system of pump, pipes and a solar collector through which the water is pumped on its way back to the pool. Constant recirculation will eventually result in all the water in the swimming pool becoming warm ... at least until the sun goes down. A Brief Description Of Solar PowerSolar power describes several ways of getting energy from the light of the Sun. Solar energy is not a new thing...it has been around in many traditional building methods for thousands of years. It has become popular in the developing economies due to the high price of energy and in the developing countries due to the environmental costs. It is already in widespread use where other supplies of power are absent such as in remote locations and in space. Solar Hot Water Heaters Save Money... As the Earth circles around the Sun, it gets about about 1,400 W/m of energy, as measured upon a surface kept normal (at a right angle) to the Sun (this number is known as the solar constant). Of the energy received, about 19% is absorbed by the atmosphere, while clouds on average reflect a further 35% of the total energy. The generally accepted standard is 1020 watts per square meter at sea level. After passing through the Earth's atmosphere, most of the sun's energy is in the form of visible and ultraviolet light. Plants use solar energy to create chemical energy through photosynthesis. We use this energy when we burn wood or fossil fuels. ... reference http://www.wikipedia.com More on Solar Pool HeatersMetal solar pool heaters or collectors are usually made of copper tubing built on an aluminum plate. The metal collectors are more durable than the plastic ones, and they are actually very efficient when it comes to absorbing heat, therefore needing less roof space than plastic collectors. The metal collectors have some notable disadvantages. The copper tubes may react with your walls of the pool, resulting in discoloration that can only be removed by draining, cleaning, and repainting the pool. You can avoid having this problem by making sure that the water in the pool remains at a pH above 7.2. Since all swimming pools require a pump and related plumbing, the addition of a solar pool heater to an existing installation can be relatively simple. However, unless you are experienced with plumbing and electrical wiring, it is advisable to allow a professional to install your system. Often the existing swimming pool filter pump can be used to circulate the pool water, though you should be sure it is able to maintain a high flow rate in order to keep the panels cool and operating at a high efficiency. The pool water should circulate through the collectors every 8 - 12 hours...This means if your pool is 15,000 gallons then the flow rate should be between about 5,000 gallons per hour and 7,500 gallons per hour (multiply swimming pool volume by 0.66 and 0.5 and this will give you correct solar pool heater flow rate) You can work out the volume of your pool as follows to specify solar pool heater flow rates
How large should the solar collector be for my solar pool heater?There is no one answer for this question and to be accurate a series of complex calculations have to be made ... however don't be too concerned about this at this stage except to recognize that your solar pool heater size (surface area) will depend upon these main factors ...
East facing (ie in northern hemisphere) orientations are marginal.The tilt of the collector for solar pool heaters is just as important as the orientation. To receive maximum solar radiation, collectors should be perpendicular to the suns rays. For primarily summer heating of solar pool heaters, the tilt should be equal to your latitude minus 10 to 15 degrees. In situations where it is desirable to install the solar pool heater collector horizontally, such as on a flat roof, the collector area should be increased to 75% of the pool surface area. You can read a wide range of water usage articles. They discuss the use of water in the house and home ... topics covered include filters, heaters, softeners and water in the garden. |
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