How effective is solar heating in outdoor swimming pools in Melbourne Australia?

Do you own an outdoor swimming pool? We do. Ours is solar heated, so I thought I would share some observations about how well our outdoor pool is heated using a passive solar array.

If you are thinking about investing in a pool, or even about buying a pool solar heating system, this information about how much solar heating warms our pool up might help.  We don't have a gas boosted heater, or electric hot water system attached to the pool, just the solar.

Now Melbourne isn't exactly tropical, so lets make a few comparisons. Some friends of ours have an above ground pool, about waist deep. Its volume is about half of our 35000 litre pool. And they have no heating, solar or otherwise.

At the end of November our pool was perfect for swimming in, crisp and clear. Not steaming hot but around 22 degrees celsius, just fine for swimming. They tell me their pool is still freezing. Another family we know lives down the mountain, where it is slightly warmer. Their solar heated pool with a gas boost is at 24 degrees. I am pretty happy with our results, especially considering we heat our pool for free.

Now lets step back a few months. In August, our pool was icy cold, at around 8 degrees celsius. We live in the Dandenonngs, where the air temperature is a bit colder than Melbourne, so make allowances for this when comparing where you live. It snows up here in winter.

Now lets tell you a bit about our system. Its pretty basic. Its actually designed especially for solar pools but we have seen others that are DIY. Its made of black PVC or polyethylene pipes. The pool pump pumps the water through these pipes after passing it through the filter.

The pipes themselves are on the roof of a shed, which gets sunlight about 80 percent of the time, with some slight shade in the afternoon. The measurements are about nine meters by three meters, which is important if you are thinking about installing or buying something similar. Here is a picture of the setup.

As you can see its on a flat roof of a shed. Might need to trim the trees soon

How well does it work? Well if you remember that our pool is about 35000 litres, if we get an averagely warm day, say about 28 degrees celsius, and we run the pump for 8 hours, the pool comes up about three degrees celsius in temperature. Not bad.

Tags : solar pool heater, Melbourne, Australia, pool heating, solar heating, solar, free solar,swimming pool heater, solar system