Why You Should Use Solar Heating for Your Swimming Pool
Every month you invest a significant amount of money in your swimming pool with
chemicals, maintenance, and electricity to operate your filter pump. When you
heat your swimming pool, you can actually extend your swimming season and allow
you to spend more time enjoying your pool. To heat your swimming pool you can
use propane, or natural gas heaters. These have a low installation cost, but
have a high operational cost. In addition, gas heaters usually have a life span
of only 5-8 years. Another way to heat your swimming pool is with a heat pump,
which cost more to install than that of a gas heater, however, has a less
expensive operational cost than that of a gas heater.
With the solar heater you are not using any energy, or at least any energy
that you are paying for, you are using the suns energy to heat your pool.
Another reason why you should use solar energy to heat your swimming pool is
that other energy sources such as gas heaters add pollutants into the air. Solar
energy is a clean renewable energy source, which doesn’t contribute to
pollution.
When installing the solar heating systems, the solar collectors should be
installed where they will receive the maximum amount of direct sunlight for a
good portion of the day. Therefore, depending on the mounting surface’s angle as
east, west and even flat facing systems should function satisfactory as long as
it is sized properly for the pool.
Proper sizing of the solar heating system is vital for achieving maximum
heating. The typical swimming pool requires a solar panel surface area, which
equals approximately 50-100% of the pool’s surface area. The size of the heater
however, will depend on several factors, which are the size and shape of the
pool, how much of the pool is shaded, the geographic location, the swimming
season, and desired pool temperature. In addition, you also have to take into
consideration windy conditions as well as the direction of the roof such as does
it face south, east, west or is it flat. Your solar swimming pool heating
specialist will be able to assist you in selecting the proper size system you
will need.
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