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Guard Dad

Guard Dad

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Water cooled condenser installed on A/C unit. Fan on pressure control, so it stays off most of the time. Water pulled from the pool and ran through coil to remove the waste heat, and then the heated water is put back into the pool.

This is free heat, mind you, and I'm cutting my electricity usage by not running the outside fan.

This is temporary plumbing, will tie it in to the buried pipe tomorrow.

I'm curious to see how it affects pool heat over the next few days.

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:dunno. I have no idea what you're talking about - are you trying to turn your ac into a heater?
 
LisaC said:
:dunno . I have no idea what you're talking about - are you trying to turn your ac into a heater?
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OK...what an A/C does is remove heat from your house. Normally, it gets rid of the heat through the hot air coming off the outdoor unit.

I have modified it so it doesn't dump the waste heat into the air, but into the pool water. So I'm getting free heat for my pool and making the A/C use less electricity too.
 
I have to admit that I just don't get it. It's a hundredupteen degrees out and you're still heating your pool? To me pool = cool and refreshing ... not bathtub warm. I know to each their own but I really just don't get it. How warm do you keep it?
 
unionmom said:
I have to admit that I just don't get it. It's a hundredupteen degrees out and you're still heating your pool? To me pool = cool and refreshing ... not bathtub warm. I know to each their own but I really just don't get it. How warm do you keep it?
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My pool is shaded, so it needs supplemental heat even in the summer.

88 degrees seems just about perfect.
 
Again, to each their own but that seems awfully warm to me.

Great idea though to capture the otherwise wasted heat. :thumbsup
 
MrsB said:
Woo. Mine was 86 today. It was just right, in full sun. OMG it was hot today.
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Yes, it was. I was working out in the heat all afternoon. Musta drank 5 gallons of water.
 
I peed in the kiddy pool today and it warmed up to 89 degrees.
 
Guard Dad said:
BeatBoxinGranny47 said:
I peed in the kiddy pool today and it warmed up to 89 degrees.
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It only holds a gallon though
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4 gallons, thank you, and I dont need no fancy temperature checker to know the degrees. I just use our Turkey thermometer.
 
Interesting how you're making it work. It always seemed wasteful to me how much energy is given off by air conditioners. I'm glad you're finding a way to capture it.

I don't know much about swimming pools though: nobody in my town has one. We just have the city pool. (I think the money is around thanks to oil, but the time needed to enjoy it isn't due to short summers.) So I'm having just a bit of trouble picturing heating a pool. I recognize that water sucks out body heat much faster than air. I know the thermodynamics, and I have personal experience from when I was 13 years old (swimming in Lake Superior).

So I'm a little curious: how warm is an ideal pool? Growing up, my swimming involved my grandparents' pond. I have no pool experience, but I would think that if a pool were too warm, it wouldn't be refreshing and cool like the pond was.

Sorry, I'm tired, and my brain doesn't work well when I'm tired!
 
I'm no help, lol. All I know is that when my pool is below 80 (and even at 80, really) the water is too chilly and not refreshing to me at all. It's so cold toe it takes my breath away. When it's around 84 is when it's most comfortable to me. I don't have a heater, though. I rely on the sun.

I don't know why this is, really. When I was a kid I spent my summers swimming in a creek in the woods at the foot of Signal Mtn. We used to swear the only reason that water wasn't frozen was because it was moving. It ran all the way from the top of the Moutain where there was a water fall, and it was clean and clean and like ice.
 
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