Finally! A Heater For the Pool

You know there's times when it's just too cold to get into your pool. I'm talking wintertime, folks. Frigid temperatures, like when the pool goes down below 80℉, like down to the mid-seventies.

Such was our case. A pool heater seemed like a mighty fine idea. One problem, though, was that I didn't want to spend a fortune on a heater, nor did I want to make it any more complex that necessary.

I did quite a bit of research over the past three years or so. Not continuously, but every now and then. Kind of a casual, laid-back sort of research. Anyway, it seems that most of the heating systems out there, at least for in-ground pools, want several things.

One, spend lots of money. Two, use your main pump so you can move massive amounts of water. Three, it needs to be complex. Adding a system to the pool after it's up and running is hard.

Those three caused me pause. That's why research went on for so long. Well, one of the reasons anyway.

I began to think about the cost. Was there a way that I could install a pool heater without breaking the bank, and that wasn't overly complex and didn't require me to modify the existing plumbing unnecessarily?

I noticed in my research, that there was a wide difference in heater system prices for above-ground pools, compared to in-ground systems.

Little by little, I began to wonder why I couldn't adapt elements of an above-ground pool to my in-ground pool. I realized that there was no reason I couldn't do just that. The pool doesn't know if it's above-ground or not.

I was taken with the idea of using an above-ground heater, especially the long strip types, with narrow little tubes for the water to run through. I had the roof space available, so why not?

I had thought of using large vinyl tubing to heat the water, but putting it into coils, for some reason, seemed like a lot of work to me. I have a roll of about 200-feet of 3/4" black tubing, so that wasn't the problem. For some reason, I just couldn't get motivated to do my heater that way.

The more I thought about the issue, the more the strip appealed to me. The one that captivated my attention was twenty foot long by about two or three feet, and it only cost around $150.00 US.

Some time ago, David Wright and I went together on an order for a solar system. This consisted of a two-foot by four-foot solar panel, metal support frame, to attach it to a pole, and a small, low-volume 12-V d.c. pump. That was a good setup to order. The boxes containing the ordered bits sat in my workshop for several months.

The other thing I had done to get ready was a bit of pool modification. I didn't do it, but I had asked our contractor, Mario, to include two ports in the pool for a heater system, They did just that and ran it to the pump house. That was all. You can see in the photo below, the little holes I'm talking about.

Little Holes

Not those on the left. That's some troubleshooting that was going on to track down an internal leak connected with the waterfall. The ones I'm talking about are on the right side just left of the black power panel box. See those two little holes? That's it. That was the extent of the prebuilt for the heater.

So, when I finally did get serious about the pool heater, I bit the bullet and ordered a twenty-foot heater strip. I was concerned because a couple of the reviews of it had stated that the 'non-standard' fittings created major problems, and the people couldn't understand why they used such oddball fittings. I figured that I could cobble something together that would work. Half of what we work on down here is cobbled together.

Shift forward a couple of weeks and Easy Shipping to Belize shows up at our gate with the rolled-up heater and some other stuff. Wow. Time to get serious. Especially since I had the help of Denis Patterson, our neighbor from across the street.

Denis and Vivien, his wife, were staying in our Mennonite house since their house was rented long-term and they didn't want to disturb their tenants. Denis and Vivien are from Alberta, Canada, and are nice people (aren't all Canadians?).

The Repair Shop

Denis and I took a break from the project to take care of a project of Denis'. His on-demand heater at his house had stopped working. We needed to get it running in short order so his tenants didn't rebel.

It may not look like it, but this is the best TV, stereo, and water heater repair place in town. When Denis first took his heater there, they said, "No. We don't fix them things no more." Ok. So, Denis and I went on an adventure to find who could.

We tried Nairobi Rancharan's place. Nope, He doesn't do heaters, only refrigerators and auto A/C units. I've taken my Isuzu there. He thought there was a guy down the street by a vacant lot, and to the left, who did that. On we went.

Turns out after a couple wrong turns, that you had to go through the vacant lot to find this guy. Nope. This heater has electronics in it. He only repairs the kind with a pilot light. He thought there was another shop down by the little park near Memo's Auto Repair (who I've never used). Memo's looks more like a bar than an auto shop, but what do I know? A couple of guys sitting on a bench out front thought that this guy was a little past the park and to the left.

Turns out he was. He was upset that we got there early. He didn't open till 9:00 AM. But, to our benefit, (he was talking to us through his bedroom window), he put on some shorts and came out to talk with us. From the way he talked, he seemed more educated than some. He repaired all sorts of electronics and computers, but not heaters. He even had a website (E & L Electronics) and has a small e-store for parts. Who knew?

When he turned us down, we were at a loss. Denis decided to go back to the first place, with hat in hand and beg them to look at it. So, that's what we did.

The TV Technician

Back at the shop, we went inside to find the TV technician busy modifying his hoodie to hold some small speakers. I can't imagine wearing a hoodie in this environment, but whatever. He hollered for the water heater technician, "Hey, Water Heater!" The water heater technician just happened to be coming through the door with a cup of coffee. "Yup, we can fix it," he said.

Now, keep in mind, this was the same guy who, the day before, had told Denis, that they no longer worked on heaters. It was like that conversation had never occurred.

Here's the Stereo Lab

Just before we left, I snapped a shot of the Stereo technician's workspace or lab. Ain't it wonderful?

The great end of the story is that the water heater guy called Denis the very next day and told him the heater was ready to go. Turns out the Solenoid had gone bad. Miracles do happen.


Now, on with the main story. Denis and I went up to Lano's Hardware and picked up several lengths of PVC tubing, fittings, glue, brackets and all that sort of stuff. I had also brought along one of the key fittings from the heater, expecting to spend some quality time figuring out how to cobble together something that would join the heater to my ½" PVC tubing.

I showed Vien (Mr. Lan's nephew, who runs the sales counter at the store) the fitting. He took one look at it after I briefly described what I wanted to do, and said, "I know what will work," and quickly disappeared into the back of the store. He returned with two fittings. One, a coupling, slid snugly over the fitting of the heater, and the other, a ¾" to ½" reducer. That was it. A perfect solution. A little epoxy, to ensure that it doesn't separate and we'd be good to go.

I had expected to spend at least an hour rummaging around trying to find something that would solve our problem. Sometimes, things just work out right, you know? Denis and I took our purchases and headed back to Casa Winjama and our project.

Where the Heater is Going

Here's the area of the roof where I thought of placing the heater. It's on the order of being 30-feet long so there should be no problem placing the heater there.

Proposed Track for the Tubing

I thought that with the heater strip laid out on the roof, that I'd be able to run the tubing over the roof parapet and along the top of the frame for the pool shade enclosure, over to the pump house and in through a hole somewhere to the inside of the pump house.

Over the parapet

In fact, the parapet is where we started the tubing work. You can see we're getting it assembled in good fashion. We have three tubes, one for incoming cold water, one for outgoing hot water, and one to hold the wires from the solar panel to the pump motor that we're locating in the pump house.

Running Down the Roof

The PVC tubing is now running down the length of the roof of the pool enclosure. Good progress.

The Heater Laid Down

Here's the heater in it's position on the roof. It works fine right there. I might add a framework to support the heater and the solar panel at the proper 15° for our latitude, but I'm not sure that it's really going to be necessary.

Looking the Other Direction

You can see we also have the solar panel more or less in place. Nothing is crowded and everything is in place with plenty of unimpeded sunlight for most of the day.

The solar panel is in shade in the morning till about 8:00 AM. So, the pump doesn't start till then, but that delay allows the water remaining in the tubes to heat up so that when the pump does start, it's moving hot water to the pool.

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Here you can see everything in more or less it's final places. You can also see the join between the PVC tubing and the heater fitting. There's also a union fitting on each leg to make separation of the heater from the PVC tubing easier, because when the pool warms up enough that the heater is no longer needed, it will be rolled up and both it and the solar panel will be lowered off the roof and put in storage in the pool utility room till the succeeding winter when it's needed again.

The Pump In Place

This is a view inside the pump house again. It's showing the pump on a shelf I installed, all hooked up. The black line has the wires coming from the solar panel through the roof and through the power panel to the motor.

Pump Detail

There's also a controller circuit in the little black box,since removed. It didn't work right and proved to not be necessary. The tube sticking up from the pump with a blue-handled valve on it, allows us, as needed, to prime the pump (brings to mind an old Kingston Trio song - Desert Pete). We even have a funnel on hand just for that purpose.

I also installed a switch (the old-school looking round thing), in case we need to shut the pump off during the day. I also will be adding a 15-amp fuse to protect the pump motor, just in case.

Final words on the project. Yesterday was its first full day of work. For a couple of weeks now, the pool temperature has been hovering around 79℉, barely able to make it 80℉ during the day. Well, yesterday, the temp was up to 81℉. Not bad for one day's work. We think it will take two to three days to get the temp from 79℉ all the way up to 84℉. Perfect till summer kicks in.

Pardon me. I've got my trunks on, a cold beer, and I'm headed to the warm pool. life is grand!