Pool Heater

[flyingcow]

With the set up I have, would it be better to heat my pool water using my storage tank? When pool season hits, we're done heating house. Why couldn't I hook up off my main lines from the boiler? then when boiler's out pull the heat back out of tank thru the exisxting HX in tank. I've got a 150,000 btu propane heater on it now. We don't use it much, maybe 75 gals a season. This unit will bring up my pool temps 1 and 1/2 degrees an hour, without the aid of the sun. 30,000gal pool.

 

[pybyr]

Not quite sure I'm following your exact current or proposed layouts-

-but assuming you're factoring in boiler return temp protection and the need to make sure that there's some form of heat exchanger between boiler water and pool water so that the boiler water does not pick up oxygen (or other corrosive compounds in pool water) (and also make sure that any HX is OK with pool chemicals- I thing that pool-heating HXs are often made out of different alloys to resist corrosion) --

--and also that you are not relying on your storage for DHW (which'd run out once the pool pulled the storage temp down), can't think of why not.

 

[flyingcow]

I typically don't make sense, it's what I do best.
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I will have a hx beside the pool pump? I think anyways. Hx will be isolate from the pool water. Run "1-1/4 lines, from pool hx, back to supply and return that are between boiler and the hx in the storage tank. When i need to heat the pool I'll be running the wood boiler, it's going to need alot of btu's. Any excess will bump up storage(another temovar valve maybe?), probably won't get more than a few hours of use directly out of the storage tank. Don't plan on relying on storage tank for the bulk of heat, as it would suck up my DHW, as you pointed out. Also I plan on(who knows when) of putting up solar collectors, about 250sq/ft to support this tank. Already got the rough size, from "Tom of Maine" who built my tank. Oh yeah, the hx in the tank should be able to do 150,000btu. Maybe Tom could chime in on this. Maybe I'll need to but another hx from him, dunno. I may be over thinking of how to do this. Any suggestions on other ways would be appreciated. I'm sure i just really "confused" things more. :coolsmile:

 

[Rory]

Your pool has about 36 times the volume of water as your tank. If you try to heat it with the wood boiler, it's unlikely that there'll be any "excess heat" you'll have to store. I also have a boiler and a pool. I thought about it, but seeing as how the same fire that supplies me with a week's worth of DHW would probably only raise the pool by a degree or so, it doesn't seem worth it.

 

[tom in maine]

If you were to go this route, I would suggest pumping tank water into your pool heat exchanger. It is simple and works.

You will pull a lot of heat out of the tank very fast when heating a pool.
I would suggest a solar pool heater. It is cheap and will throw a lot of energy into the pool.

You usually install one half of the pool surface in collector. Collectors cost $2.50 to $5.00 a square foot.
Or you can DIY one. Check out builditsolar.com for some ideas.

 

[pybyr]

If you were to go this route, I would suggest pumping tank water into your pool heat exchanger. It is simple and works.

You will pull a lot of heat out of the tank very fast when heating a pool.
I would suggest a solar pool heater. It is cheap and will throw a lot of energy into the pool.

You usually install one half of the pool surface in collector. Collectors cost $2.50 to $5.00 a square foot.
Or you can DIY one. Check out builditsolar.com for some ideas.

Back in the 70s, a relative of mine in upstate NY made a homebrew solar pool heater by making a rack of 4x8 plywood sheets, angled long way up, covered by thick black poly sheet, and then a bunch of black poly pipe attached in a long zig-zag over the black surface, and then an optional layer of clear greenhouse plastic over the top of it all. It worked, with remarkable effect.