The Dumpster Divers go solar

Solar panels are an eco-friendly, inexpensive way to warm up your pool. We have a 20 X 40 in-ground pool in MA. It gets pretty cold in the Northeast, and our summers are short. Mike and I wanted to extend our swim season as long as possible without using more electricity or gas (etc). Pool heaters are very expensive in the first place, not to mention the continued cost of running it! If you are handy, you can install the solar panels yourself and save hundreds on installation. We just ran some piping (found at Home Depot) from our filter up to the roof that gets full sun. The water goes from the filter up to the panels and runs through small tubes inside that heats up the water. Then it comes back down through an output pipe that leads back to the filter and into your pool.

Our pool is pretty big, but 4 double long pannels seem to do the trick, provided you have a lot of sunny days. The temperature has reached as high as 85 degrees so far this summer and it isn’t even August yet! Our pool has never been this warm.

The only drawbacks are that our filter doesn’t run quite as strong when we use the solar paneling. We put in a bypass so if the pool gets too warm or we want to run the filter full power, we have the option. I would definitely recommend this feature.

We got the whole thing done in a day for about $700. The best part is … the sun is free! You can also feel great about not wasting precious power or fuel!!!