Pool Lilly Pad Solar Cover

A week ago i wrote about how Karrie and i got a new used pool.

After putting up the pool we quickly realized that it was too cold.  It was just in too much shade from the trees and the sun didn't have time to warm up the water.  After we take down the pool in the fall we plan on cutting down a lot of branches.  But until then we began looking into some cheap options and i saw this really cool idea.  It's a great combination of simplicity and effectiveness.  Basically you pump the water from your pool through several hundred feet of black hose pipe.

By the time the water flows through the hot pipe and back into the pool, the water temperature can rise up to 150 degrees, depending on the amount of sunlight.  I thought this was genius.  The problem we had was that we didn't have a great place to put the pipe where it would get sun all day long.  Some people put it on the roof of their house but that seemed like too much work.  Also the cost for all that pipe and a submersible pump was over $100.  So that option was out.

Our next option was a solar cover.  But the cheapest cover i could find for an 18 foot pool was $60.  And i wasn't really happy with the material.  It's basically just blue bubble wrap that floats on the water.

 

I thought it would be some sort of heavy duty corrugated plastic that would create a greenhouse like effect.  Solar covers are basically just blue bubble-wrap.  Also after talking to the guy at the store, the main purpose for the cover is to keep the heat in the water at night, not to heat the water up during the day.  I was looking for something that would do both.

So i continued to look online for ideas and i saw theses Solar Rings. They are 5' in diameter and cost around $18 each.  They give you the option of adding more or less to vary the amount of heat that is kept in the pool.  Here's what they look like.

I figured that i could make them for practically nothing.  Just go to the dollar store, buy a couple of hula hoops and wrap them in a black garbage bag.  (Needless to say we have a very classy pool)

But then when i went to the dollar store, the only hula hoops they had were real small, cheap and looked like they would fall apart.

So instead i went to Lowe's and bought 100' of 3/4" sprinkler plastic pipe for $17.  Then instead of garbage bags i remembered that i had 2 rolls of landscaping plastic barrier material.  It was a little thicker material and i thought it would hold up better.

The real solar rings are 5' in diameter and for our 18' pool i would only need 8 rings.  But i figured that 5' would be too difficult to handle and store over the winter.  4' diameter would probably be the best, but the roll of landscaping plastic comes in 3' sheets.  So i decided to make the rings 3' in diameter so that it would fit perfectly on the 3' sheets, it would mean less cutting and less wasted material.

After drawing this on AutoCAD i realized that i would need 21 rings to fill a pool 18 foot in diameter. 

Here's the materials i used.  The 100' of 3/4" irrigation pipe, 10 connectors and the black plastic.  (it's actually a weed barrier material) 

I measured and cut first ring to be just under 3' in diameter.  I needed to have an inch or two on either side so that i could fold it around and attach it to the ring.  And at the bottom you can see the gray connector piece that connects the two ends into a ring.

 Here you can see how i cut the black plastic.

I tested out several different ways to attach the plastic sheet to the pipe.  I was hoping that i could just use the hot soldering wand and melt the two plastic parts together.  But the plastic sheet was too thin and it just melted away.  Next i tried different types of tape which ended up working alright.  I ended up going with hot glue.  It was fast, cheap, held together the best and looked good too. 

So i cut and joined up 10 rings using all of the 100' pipe.

Here they are all done and hot glued together.

I threw them in the pool and realized that my sketch was right.  10 rings meant i was only half way to filling the pool.

 Long story short, this is only a good idea if you can get the building materials FREE.  If you have to buy the pipe and plastic, then you might as well just buy a $60 solar cover.  The 100 feet of 3/4" plastic pipe and 10 connectors cost $25.

I ended up having to go back and buy another 100' and connectors.  I had enough black plastic sheets for another 5 rings.  But before having to go back and buy more plastic for the last 5, Karrie brought home some bubble wrap from her work.  I had to use clear packaging tape to make the pieces of bubble-wrap big enough but it ended up working great.

Here's what it looks like now.  It's not the best looking thing in the world but it seems to work.  Typically the pool water was fluctuating between 68 at night and 72 during the day.  After adding the solar rings it reads 70 degrees in the morning and can get up to 78 if it's sunny. 

Karrie is also bringing home more large bubble-wrap from work.  I have been taping the pieces together with the idea of making our own solar cover.  Hopefully i finish it before the end of the year.