Quote Originally Posted by jcpbnp
Thanks for all the information. I'm not sure I understand how solar panels work but was is the approximate cost of having them installed?
It's very simple....A large flat black plastic panel has lots of little tubes running through it. Pool water is pumped in one side, cools the panel, and is pumped out the other side, back into the pool, carrying the heat it leached from the panel with it. Think of how hot a black, asphalt road gets--it will burn your hand. The panel would get that hot too, but all the water flowing through bleeds off the heat and keeps it cool enough to touch, sometimes even cool, even on the hottest days.

The more water you can flow through that panel, the more heat you can bleed off into your pool. It's a matter of transferring BTUs, not temperature. A BTU (British Thermal Unit) is the amount of heat energy necessary to raise one pound of water 1 degree Farenheit.

Its metric equivalent is the calorie (actually kilo-calorie) and, yes, it's EXACTLY the same calorie as used in food and dieting. A (Kilo-) calorie is the amount of heat energy needed to raise one kilogram of water 1 degree Celsius. They actually burn the food to measure the caloric output...

A solar panel works EXACTLY like your car radiator works, only backwards. Your radiator takes the hot water from the engine and exposes it to cool air, cooling the water and keeping the engine from melting. So if you run your solar panel at night, when it's cool, it will cool your pool (if the pool's too warm) in EXACTLY the same way.

I don't know the cost of installation. I've only installed them myself, or had them as part of the pool's installation (FantaSea pools). I suppose it depends on how fancy you want to get. A roof-top system that's winter-proof, with bleed valves and computations of how much pump pressure is needed is going to cost a heck of a lot more than having a guy just set up roll-up panels on the ground and plumb them in.