Solar Pool Heat

The answer to your question depends on where you live. The simplest way to use solar heat to heat swimming pool water is to run an intermittentt pump through black water hose that is exposed to the sun.

The pump needs to be intermitten because the water will have to site in the hose for a while to collect heat. Then when the pump comes on it moves the warm water to the pool and replaces the water in the black hose with cool water from the pool.

You pool water temperature will increase as this cycle repeats.

We recently purchased an above ground pool and want to buy a solar blanket to go over it. (The kind with the bubbles, like bubble wrap)

When looking online, I have seen several options with differing descriptions:

The clear solar blanket is said to be "best" because it allows the sun to penetrate to the water to heat it. (As opposed to reflecting the light back up or soaking up the light and not heating the water)

The blue suggests that it is the "best" because it’s dark color soaks up the sun’s heat.

The blue/aluminum combo suggest that the blue soaks up the heat and the aluminum reflects the heat back into the pool, making it the "best".

Arg!! And to make the decision harder, there are different thicknesses as well??

Can someone with experience with any of these please shed some light on this subject? The dumb things are so expensive. I want to get the right thing the first time.

Oh, and I posted this Q in home & garden –> maintenance & repairs and only got one answer. I thought I would go straight to those who are most likely using the covers for their pools: Parents with kids.

Help please?

Well I don’t have a pool, but my uncle & aunt do and they used to have one last summer that was blue that covered the whole pool, but this summer they have new ones that are circular and have a lot of them to cover the whole underground pool and they are also blue and heat up the pool really well. That’s all I have had experience with though.

My panels are faded and someone said you should paint them black to attract more sunlight. Anyone know what kind of paint to use and how to apply it? Thanks!

Get a flat black heat resistant paint. Rust Oleum will probably work or you can try paint designed for wood stoves.

I do have the debris cover and was wondering if these "solar covers" really make a big difference.Are the debris covers designed to heat the water? I have a neck injury and the gravity freedom of water is SO helpful but the temperature of the water is almost counterproductive for results. Help me finf a way to get a little warmth.

Depends on the color and the composition of your debris cover. It the debris cover is a dark color and not layered to at to provide some sort of insulation, like trapped air in a Quilt arrangement, then a solar cover will offer you little or no difference.