You all can see our progress on our latest creation in Sugar Bowl. We will most likely stop job-site work for the winter, but will keep ordering items from the 'model' during the winter. Enjoy.
Monday, November 16, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
The Swimming Pool That Earns It's Keep
THE REAL GREEN
In the slab that surrounds this pool are embedded 3200 lineal feet of flexible plastic tubing (PEX). The sun heats the concrete, which is stained black, and the heat is transferred to the water in the tubing.
This morning we turned on our IN-SLAB totally passive solar pool water heater for the first time. Within minutes the water returning to the pool was 5 degrees higher than the pool itself. This is the same output of a water heater sized for this pool: or 110,000 btu unit.
The pool started out at 62 degrees and by the end of the day it was 68. If we were burning propane for the same 6 hours it would have taken 110,000X6/91330= or about 7.2 gallons of propane.
By the time we install our $140 solar blanket and keep the 'heater' going for a few days, and since the pool is totally insulated (thanks Vitruvian) we'll be cruising at 80 degrees in no time.
The carbon savings on this installation is wonderful.
The cost of this clever little apparatus was about $1500, material and labor. A water heater bought for this type of pool is minimum $2000 material & labor installed...and then you get to buy gas....forever...plus it really doesn't last forever. The tubes encased in concrete will easily last generations.
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