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HERE ARE A FEW CUSTOMER COMMENTS
Cary,
Been swimming since April 11 in upstate SC. The piping works great.
I gain about six degrees a day from morning until afternoon.
My pump runs about 5 hours a day.
The two 1000' runs are great as long as the sun is out.
I keep a solar cover on it until ready to swim.
It goes back on as soon as we are through for the day.
I lose back about 2-4 degrees a night depending on the outside temp.
Not bad for less than $300 including shipping for the supplies.
Thanks for the help.
Mark
Cary,
June 26th 2005
Left your positive feedback today as promised. The system is GREAT, I
modified your plans slightly and built a roof system 50 feet from my pool on
top of my patio/garage. Pool heat was 58 degrees on Thursday, now 80 today
(Sunday)! I used 2 runs of 1/2 PVC and looped 600 feet on each run on top
of an almost flat roof. I have an 8000 gallon above ground. I used a
laser temperature gun and noticed the roof temp actually reached 140 degrees
for 6 hours a day. During peek sunlight I achieved an increase of 15-20
degrees between the input/output tubes. WOW!
Also the energy saving tips are very informative, I plan on implementing
most of them by fall. i live in upstate NY & I'm paying off a $1,300 winter
gas bill from last season! Thanks for all the info, best money I ever
spent!
I'm going try to get the water to 90-95, just to see if its possible! I'll
let you know if I achieve this goal.
Mike
PS - you can use my email as a testimonial if you like.
appliancefixer@hotmail.com
June 29 2005
Just another update... I did easily reach the 95 degree goal, not bad for 1
week of solar heating! (37 degree increase!!!) The system works great.
I'm sure I could reach easily 100 or more, but that's high for my comfort
level. (It was odd jumping into a pool that was 95 and outside temp was
82!) I look forward to an extended swimming season here in upstate NY!
Great plans & energy tips
Mike
CARY
E Bay wont let me give feed back I waited to long but I want to make sure this worked.
WELL IT WORKS, GREAT.!!
JUNE 2 2008 LONG ISLAND NY FROM 68 DEGREES TO (DRUM ROLL)
82 DEGREES IN THREE DAYS:)
THE ONLY THING I DID WAS ADDED MORE 500' OF 1" HOSE YOU
CAN FEEL IT COME BACK INTO THE POOL WARMER. MY FRIEND HAVE
ALL STOPPED LAUGHING NOW THANKS FOR THIS GREAT IDEA AND
ANYONE WHO LEFT YOU BAD FEEDBACK THEY JUST HAVE NO BRAINS TO WORK
THRU WHAT EVER THE PROBLEM IS EVERY SET-UP CAN'T BE THE SAME.
I WORKED THRU MINE AND IT WORKS GREAT.
THANKS THANKS THANKS IT GOING TO BE A GREAT SUMMER.
THANKS
AL
Cary,
I have been running your "heating system" for two weeks now.
Using it in conjunction with my solar cover, my pool temp
has been raised from 54 degrees to 75 degrees in two weeks.
When summer finally comes to Michigan (this has been a cold spring)
I am sure it will help my pool temp stay in the mid 80's. Thanks again. Ed Vance
Thank you Cary,
Your honesty is refreshing.
I've finished the installation in less than 4 hours
well except for the tying the pipe to the warehouse roof.
I can't wait for tomorrow.
I'm going to pop a beer and just watch that baby heat up.
Thanks again,
Jon
Dear sunfreeenterprises,
Very happy with the product and the service and
speed of information exchange was the best I have had so far!
Cannot be more pleased with the results!
Thank you so much sunfree!
Thanks the plans were very helpful,
I set up my heater yesterday using your plans.
I also left you positive feedback
Thanks,
Dave
Laurel Mountain Aquarium
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Cary,
Received, Built, and Heating.
We've already gotten our EasySet pool a full 4 degrees over anything we
were able to do last year, even with a solar cover.
We're going to take your suggestion of black plastic in the bottom of the
pool with a clear cover to see if we can get it up to 84-86. We currently get up to 80-82.
Our problem is that with only a 1300g water volume we get a lot of cooling
at night. Some of the cooler nights we've had have cause an 8-10 degree
drop. Any suggesations? You already recommended using 2x200 loops of
poly, I've added a third to try to eke out a little more pre-noon heating.
I do put the solar cover on at night in an attempt to prevent a lot of
surface cooling.
Thanks,
Keith
I very pleased to know that everything is working well..
If you could figure out some sort of blanket to keep the heat in at night.
The sides as well as the top allow heat to dissipate.. Also, read my energy
savings manual.. It will save you on your power bills as well.
Thanks
Sincerely
Cary
Cary,
Thanks for the offer of help. I have to say I didn't follow your design completely, but your design got me started. My valve is like this, I have a tee coming out of the filter. The part of the Tee that is sticking out goes directly back to the pool skimmer. The straight part of the Tee goes right into a ball valve, followed by 3 of your Tee designs that feed into 1000' poly pipe runs. There is a cap on the end of the last T. Once the water goes through the poly pipe, the other end of the 3 runs are in the pool instead of going back into the skimmer hose like in your original plans. This way I can monitor the water coming out of the poly pipes. Luckily I did, because I had a kink in one of the runs of Poly that I didn't notice causing it not to work. Doing it this way causes absolutely no additional stress on the pool pump and give complete control and knowledge of the heated water coming through the poly pipe. I have the poly pipe sitting on a silver tarp 12 X 16. I figure this way it heats up both the top and the bottom of the Poly pipe. It is a heat generating machine. You can't even get near it without being blinded by the sun or feeling the heat generating off of it. The silver tarp actually gets too hot to touch. The best sun, at least in New Jersey, is in the afternoon. The water coming out of the Poly pipes is over 100 Degrees towards the end of the day! It pumps out about 250 gallons an hour. I have a 20 X 40 pool and it heated up 6 degrees today (from 74 to 80) with the pump running from 8 AM to 5 PM and a solar blanket on it until 2 PM. If I could hit the 90 degree mark with a 27,000 gallon pool, I'll be amazed! I'll let you know. Thanks, Nick
Questions & Answers
CUSTOMER / USER COMMENTS & HELP
I'm in the process of carrying out some experiments to optimize the results of the installation.
I live in Fort Myers FL and am going to put 4 runs of 500' 1/2" thin walled
black poly pipe on the roof with a frame to hold the base
perpendicular to the sun at 12:00 noon on Dec.21.
The experiments indicate I should get about a 6 degree rise
in temp during a 6 hour filter run at this time of year
if my experiments scale up properly.
I found the pipe at a local lawn sprinkler supply house for $100/2000'
versus more than $500 at Home Depot.
You might want to pass that along to your other customers
Hi,
I bought your plans and am excited to try them. I have a 10,000 gallon in-ground pool. The pool has a pop-up in-floor cleaning system, Hayward Super II pump and sand fileter. I plan to run either 3 runs of 1,000 ft or 6 runs of 500 feet 1/2 inch poly. I live in Phoenix, so this may be overkill. I have a few questions for you:
Can I put the heater on my garage? Yes The filter is right next to the garage. It's a flat roof, like the rest of my sante fe style house. Its about 12 feet up to the top. I figure the heater will weigh about 500 lbs when full of water. I would think it would be fine, since my furnace/ac/swamp cooler are up there on a different part of the house (not the garage) and weigh much more than this. I have plenty of room in the back yard, too. But I think it will get much hotter on the roof.
It will work as well on the ground, but if you want the roof go ahead.. Nothing supplys heat like the sun..
Will the pump still be able to operate the in-floor system with the heater installed (will I still have enough pressure)? Yes, have it BEFORE the solar heater valve.
Your valve doesn't seem to stop flow to the heater when its open. There is so much less resistance with the larger pipe for your system almost nothing will flow out to the coils. Would'nt some water keep running through the heater, lowering pressure in the system? You wouldn't notice.
I've used 1/2 inch poly line with drip irrigation systems before. The fittings tend to leak (a lot). Have you found this to be a problem? I've used PVC glue and also for extreme issues simple hose clamps. I feel that 90% won't leak, make sure the poly pipe is nice and warm at the ends and you might put the adapters in the freezer so together at application time there will be a better more sure fit.
This almost seems too good to be true, since the panel systems cost 10 times as much, but if I can get 10 degrees out of it, I'll do it.
In life sometimes simple is too good to be true. Go over my energy conservation manual if you want to good to be true...
Thanks
SIncerely
Cary