Swimming pools blog

3 responses so far ↓

• 1 Cornelius Mckenzie // Apr 4, 2003 at 2:21 pm

  The classic is a simple black plastic pipe running across the ground, a small
  pump (your existing pool pump, if you have one, might work), and a wall-plug
  timer so that it runs during the afternoons. (A cover for the pool would
  help, too, if you don’t already have one. Keeps the water from evaporating
  and taking the heat with it.)
  You can experiment with the pipe layout - a coil of pipe might work just as
  well as running it out linearly, and raising it a little off the ground might
  help with the heat retention. As for how much pipe to run… the very
  approximate rule of thumb is that the solar heat collector should cover the
  equivalent of about 50% of the area of the pool itself. For your pool, that
  would be… 350 feet of 1.5″ black plastic pipe. Hm. That’s a fair bit. Well,
  it’s easy enough with the pipe method to start with less and add more later
  if you need it.
  Hope this helps.
  Garry
  
  PS - Another consideration - what do you do with all that pipe someday when
  the pool is dead & gone? I don’t know. Not good to put it into the landfill.
  Is there any way to recycle that kind of pipe?

• 2 Cornelius Mckenzie // Apr 6, 2003 at 5:18 am

  Sometimes there is no good, specific response to a question.

  You clean it out.
  (More specifically, at least from my experience: you drain it, clean it, and
  start over. Scrub brushes, pressure washers, and all the usual cleaning
  agents can be helpful.)
  Garry

• 3 Cornelius Mckenzie // Apr 8, 2003 at 3:43 pm

  chemicals.
  What I meant was… I think that when you have a real mess, which it sounded
  like you do, you have to clean the mess out, wash down the walls, etc, before
  you can do anything with it. Once it’s cleaned out, -then- you refill and you
  do the normal chemicals.
  But I am not that experienced. Perhaps someone else here would know: is it
  possible to rescue a pool from the “green slime” stage -without- draining and
  cleaning it?
  Garry

You must log in to post a comment.