New Solar Pool Heating System

18 years ago

We just had a new system installed. I got two bids and took the one from a company installing Heliocol panels. The warranty was for 12 years and the cost was substantially below the other bid. We paid $3700 for the system installed. They put it up in a few hours, something a lot of DIYers could do themselves, but I didn't want to do that. It should heat our pool to swimmable temperatures for about 80 percent of the year, I'm told.

We live in Columbia SC and have excellent southern exposure. Our next door neighbors are building a pool and will go without any heat. The cost of a gas heater would be about ... $3700 + up to $300 a month to run. It seemed to make nothing but good sense to go solar. What amazes me is how rare it is in my area. We had to get an installer from 2 hours away.

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Comments (6)

solargary
18 years ago
Hi,
Good Job!

It is amazing that solar pool heaters are not used more. This is a quote that really drives it home for me from Home Power:

"Three gallons of oil refined and burned provides 400,000BTU ... Once. Three gallons of oil, made into a 4 by 12 foot solar collector, can provide over 10 million BTUs per year ... year after year"

Gary
bushleague
18 years ago
Don nice work. I am planning on the same idea what Company did the work for you? Thanks!
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loganlady
18 years ago
We did the same thing with Heliocol-West. They are the best company to deal with. Decided to use the heat here in southern Nevada to our advantage. Our pool temp got to 80 yesterday. Yahoo!!! We are also using it to heat our spa as well. Discovered the hard way that using propane is not the way to heat it. YIKES. Pricey. Now the propane co. is wondering why we aren't needing so much propane-LOL.

Beca
blackthorne
18 years ago
Hi
Has anyone had any experience with installing a pool solar heating system on a metal roof in South Florida?
doyledh
Original Author
18 years ago
The company that did the installation here in Columbia SC was Tablerock Technologies; they are located in upstate SC. See link below. Tone Nichols is the owner and installer. Just yesterday we got power to the pool equipment and Tone came down to set up the heating system. It is amazingly simple: a thermostat with a sensor drilled into the outake pipe and attached to a valve that diverts water to the panels on top of the roof. You can watch it turn. It also has cooling capacity, which essentially means running it at night when tempeartures outside drop. She advised that I would not need this but if we found it too warm in August she would come down and set it up.
It will take a few days to get the pool all balanced and clean, and warm, and I've paid my last bill for heating it.

Here is a link that might be useful: Tablerock Technologies
dennissein_aol_com
17 years ago
I think solar pool heaters are a scam. I bought one for my home in Palm Desert, CA and it has had almost no effect on the water temp. This unit moves the pool water onto the roof and through panels that supposedly heat the water. It adds about 2-3 degrees of heat to the water, which in the winter means the water goes from 60 to 62 degrees, making the pool unusable in the winter. Basically it adds about 2 weeks per year of extra swimming time to a pool with no solar system. Really NOT worth the investment.