Pool Heating - Conceptual Discussion

Wow...with all this cold weather the Management said that she wonders if the above ground pool will ever heat up which of course twisted my feeble mind into using a LL stoker next to the pool. Lets get by the possible ash in the pool ...

Conceptually there are likely two ways to do this. More concepts very welcome.

1) With the convection fans off, have a coil above the stoker. I guess you would not want to run it too high or the sheet metal box may melt. Can a copper pipe be used or will it burn up/corrode. SS? It would seem like you would not want to run the water too fast thru the coil though going to slow could cause the water to boil ? Comments ?

2) Some sort of water jacket attached to the inside of the box or above the stoker that heats the water slowly . Outside water jacket may not work well due heat transfer metal to metal contact issues. The water jacket would need to be able to slip thru the ash door. Was thinking of something like one of those 1# propane canisters (without the propane of curse )

We use that blue bubble wrap on the water's top, it really helps keep down the evaporation & resulting heat loss.

Any concepts appreciated.

Thanks

Ug

Lightning is heating his hot tub with his Clayton.

You would need a boiler to heat a pool. IMO, a little water coil in a furnace would be like pissing in the ocean. Figure a 24 foot round pool has about 15000 gallons and isn't insulted. I'm keeping my outdoor hot tub warm with a water coil in a furnace but it's only 400 gallons in a well insulated cabinet with a lid over it.

I use solar panels to help heat my pool. They work really well..

Where's our math gurus?
Raise 15,000 gallons of water 1 degree from an ambient 70* up to 71* equals xxx btus?

Not to forget, over night will have some BTU losses back to the atmosphere.

McGiever wrote:Where's our math gurus?
Raise 15,000 gallons of water 1 degree from an ambient 70* up to 71* equals xxx btus?

Not to forget, over night will have some BTU losses back to the atmosphere.

I hear ya, 15k gallons x ~10 lbs/gallon is 1.5 million BTU's for a heat rise of 1 F, so a rise of 20F is 30M btu's. A 40# bag of coal is conservatively 400k btus suggesting ~70 or so bags needed to raise the pool 20 F negating all heat losses of the stove and pool which are really significant on a cool night as noted above even with a cover to stop water evaporation and resulting heat loss. Sounds like too much work on me to benefit the Management.

The talk about the solar has a reality, my brother bless his soul created a store bought black plastic solar array on his garage roof that was pressurized by the filter outlet, on a sunny day the water trickle was so hot it was hard to cup your hand under the stream and it provided post thunderstorm housesitting 92 F water for my girlfriend and me along with Mr. and Mrs. Vodka Gimlet.

15k gallons x 8.3 lb per gallon equates to about 125k BTU's for 1 deg rise. Should be able to raise 20 deg with about 250 lb coal. Either that or I shouldn't try to do math on my phone.

Mike

Pacowy wrote:15k gallons x 8.3 lb per gallon equates to about 125k BTU's for 1 deg rise. Should be able to raise 20 deg with about 250 lb coal. Either that or I shouldn't try to do math on my phone.

Mike

You are correct, my wrong, its the pre - Altzheimers.

Thank you,

Ug

Uglysquirrel wrote:

McGiever wrote:
The talk about the solar has a reality, my brother bless his soul created a store bought black plastic solar array on his garage roof that was pressurized by the filter outlet, on a sunny day the water trickle was so hot it was hard to cup your hand under the stream and it provided post thunderstorm housesitting 92 F water.

Try yr brother's trick! It really works well!

My old neighbor built like a shallow box out of 2x4 treated ~4'x16'. The back was plywood painted black as was the wood on the inside, top was heavy clear plastic sheeting.
He took ~50 foot of black pool vacuum hose coiled it inside the box with each end poking out and propped the box next to his pool facing the sun at ~45degree angle. Ran the pool return line through the box and back into the pool like yr brother.

I couldn't believe how well it worked!
He'd actually have to disconnect it by about the 3rd week of May to keep the pool from getting too hot.
He'd plug it back in end of September and keep the pool swimmable until early November.

And it cost him about a whopping 50 bucks.

When my father had an outside wood boiler, he oversized it thinking he would need the larger size to heat his indoor pool. He was way off, not calculating in the laws of thermal dynamics properly. The problem was, once he got his pool warm, it stayed warm for a very long time. This caused his oversized boiler to really smoulder the majority of the time; summer especially, but also in the winter.

Pacowy wrote:15k gallons x 8.3 lb per gallon equates to about 125k BTU's for 1 deg rise. Should be able to raise 20 deg with about 250 lb coal. Either that or I shouldn't try to do math on my phone.

Mike

Well, I just tossed 250 lbs of coal in my pool ... temperature did not rise at all.

math, its great .. the only subject where can always prove a teacher wrong ...

davidmcbeth3 wrote:Well, I just tossed 250 lbs of coal in my pool ... temperature did not rise at all.

math, its great .. the only subject where can always prove a teacher wrong ...

Actually the kinetic energy of the falling coal added a few joules to your pool, if you had a thermometer sensitive enough, and could isolate the system from all heat transfer in or out of the pool. Oh and the latent heat of the coal too, thats a few more joules. you might have gotten a whole .0000000000000000001 degree for your troubles.

Actually in regards to the OP's question:

I have a friend who I have begun to bring over to the dark side, (Trying to get him to buy a LL stoker not an overpriced Harmon) He has a ~15000 gallon pool (I showed him the calculation, he was intriqued) and wants to heat it and just it with coal. Because of the configuration of the house (lack of flues) he's thinking about doing a shed install of a boiler. I showed him the WL110 from LL, but I was curious if they had made any further progress with the skid mounted boiler set up?

confedsailor wrote:

davidmcbeth3 wrote:Well, I just tossed 250 lbs of coal in my pool ... temperature did not rise at all.

math, its great .. the only subject where can always prove a teacher wrong ...

Actually the kinetic energy of the falling coal added a few joules to your pool, if you had a thermometer sensitive enough, and could isolate the system from all heat transfer in or out of the pool. Oh and the latent heat of the coal too, thats a few more joules. you might have gotten a whole .0000000000000000001 degree for your troubles.

Thanks Jim ....

confedsailor wrote:

davidmcbeth3 wrote:Well, I just tossed 250 lbs of coal in my pool ... temperature did not rise at all.

math, its great .. the only subject where can always prove a teacher wrong ...

Actually the kinetic energy of the falling coal added a few joules to your pool, if you had a thermometer sensitive enough, and could isolate the system from all heat transfer in or out of the pool. Oh and the latent heat of the coal too, thats a few more joules. you might have gotten a whole .0000000000000000001 degree for your troubles.

If he carried the coal close to his body it might have been slightly warmer.

But with entropy the trend is ever downward so a 0.0000000000000000001 degree increase might not have been achieved.

Much like myself,this Thread has really gone straight to Hell !

Save Yourself the Time and Aggravation,Ug...Scrap the Pool,and get the Mrs. a Membership at a place close by where they take care of everything. This includes free Pink-Eye,Athlete's Foot and a complimentary bout of Staph ! What the Hell,it's the least You can do !