Heating a pool with an air conditioner

You are correct, from my actual experience.

Maybe it depends on where you are, but in Phoenix, our pool needed cooling in the summer just from the heat load from the sun. In July and August, the water temperature would be 98+ in the evening. We had a mister hooked up to the filter return that would take a few degrees off when the pump ran at night. Pumping more heat into the pool would make it unusable for swimming.

Also, we ran the pump late at night when electric rates were lower. That would not be possible if you were using the pool as a heat sink.

Boiled, BobH

Yeah. Central TX here and same thing. Last 2 summers I got "Sun Sails" and that made quite a difference. HD sells them for $35. I got mine back when they were cheaper. They hold up remarkably well.

Are you sure they lower the bills at night? Here it just looks like they do and it fools a lot of people. Even the guys at the pool store thought it was lower at night but, actually, here, they tier the rates based on usage, not time of day.

I looked it up. Phoenix does have "time of use" billing.

Yes, we were on APS in the east valley. As long as we used more than 1/2 the daily KWH between 8PM and 8AM (or something similar), the nightime rate was about 1/3 the daytime rate. Running the pool pump from midnight to 5AM used enough power that we almost always made the required distribution, even when we were pounding hell out of the air conditioner.

BobH

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Which, as I said, means that you need a bigger condenser coil/fan for air. Which the AC unit already has. It's the big thing with coils on 4 sides, fan on top.

You can transfer the same amount of heat with either water or air, given that they are sized correctly.

Significantly cooler? The whole purpose of this thing is to keep the pool warm. So, if it works, then the pool is gonna be 80 -85, which is not significantly different than the air temps. Sure, during some periods, the pool water could be 65, but that's going to be at the beginning of the season. And during those periods, how much do you think the AC is running? In my world, it's not enough so that whatever is going on is going to make a big difference in cooling costs.

It's not going to change much at all, assuming the AC condenser already there is properly sized, which it is.

Actually they are air cooled too. They have a properly sized radiator which takes all that heat the water picks up and transfers it to the air.

Have you felt the return line on a modern one, say 14SEER?

There is no need for a variable speed pump. Any existing pool pump is going to be just fine. With a single speed pump, the water just goes at full speed. What's wrong with that? It's going already, probably 6 - 8 hours a day to filter the water.

- and you'll really need a computer to know when to

The installed unit comes with a controller that does exactly that.

If you watch the TOH video, the problem was not the AC condenser unit making noise. It did not appear to be particularly close to the pool. The problem was the pool is shady and the homeowner wanted to heat the pool. The side benefit was the alleged substantial savings in AC costs.

Yep, just watched the video.

The AC unit is right next to the pool plumbing. They mention energy savings and pool heating.

For me, the savings would be noise and the hot air blowing around. Any heat input in the pool is going to be very small. It's going to take a huge amount of hot air to heat that amount of cool water. Better to cut a few of those trees down.

First the use of isolation reservoirs are very common.

One pumps hot coolant into a tank of say salt solution but keep all of the coolant in the pipe. In another loop that goes in the tank and outside of the system - is other coolant. So coolant A never touches or mixes with coolant B.

One is drawing heat off and putting it into the salt. The other takes the heat from the salt and dumps it in the pool or in a water cooled chiller.

Many machines work that way and every NUKE works that way as well.

Mart> >> "Bruce L. Bergman (munged human readable)"

First the use of isolation reservoirs are very common.

One pumps hot coolant into a tank of say salt solution but keep all of the coolant in the pipe. In another loop that goes in the tank and outside of the system - is other coolant. So coolant A never touches or mixes with coolant B.

One is drawing heat off and putting it into the salt. The other takes the heat from the salt and dumps it in the pool or in a water cooled chiller.

Many machines work that way and every NUKE works that way as well.

Simply put the solution you want in place of the efficient salt.

Mart> >> "Bruce L. Bergman (munged human readable)"