Rose | 
02 17th, 2010| 
Hi there, my father just bought a house that has solar panels on the roof to heat the water for his pool. The water goes through pipes by the panels and flows back into the pool. I was wondering if there is any way to use that solar energy for other areas of the house. The panels were put in when the house was built in the mid 80’s and the house is in Central Florida/E. Orlando.
Thanks in advance!
Yes, you can use them to make hot water for the house, supplementing your hot water heater. These panels have just been made mandatory in Hawaii. During the summer, when you don’t need to heat the pool, you could add a valve and piping to send the water from the panels to your hot water heater.
"imintowater" has a point, you wouldn’t want to use the same water for the pool as for drinking water, and you’d have to valve the system to prevent mixing, unless you installed a heat exchanger so that the fluid that goes through the panels just transfers heat to the drinking water without mixing with it.
A quick overview of our new solar pool heating system shot with a CVS disposable video camera and edited with Windows Movie Maker. File saved at “Video for Broadband (512kb” setting.
Pool Solar array on pool deck. 5 panels, 20 ft long, 104 tubes per panel = 10400ft of 1/4 inch black tubing, almost 2 miles!. 1 HP noisy pump (for now). Works great except the noise and a few fixable leaks.
Easy, portable solar heating system for your swimming pool
