heating a small pool

[RavenNS]

I had one of those dolphino easy-set pools ( 18' x 48") & I put a 20' x 4' solar panel to it. I had aprox 50' of hose ( 25' each way) & I'm not sure how many actual feet the water had to run through ( through the panel vanes). The hose that I used was about 2" diameter & so I had to use flexible pipe conectors with O-ring attachments to make it work.
The pump did not seem to have any problems handling the extra work load.

This DIY method that your speaking of could work... check out some free plans on the internet though before purchasing anything through Ebay. Generally, you can come up with some great ideas on your own... making a solar collector is very easy... ( ever leave your garden hose in the sun? water in it gets hot pretty quickly) .. I've heard of some plans for modifying old satallite dishes for this purpose as well.

Btw, my solar panel ( which I purchase at a close out sale from a store), would heat up the pool by about 12 degrees on really hot days

Good Luck!

[GraceByDesign]

A person in my neighborhood has about 5 rows of 1 1/2" PVC, about 8' or 10'long, painted black, plumbed into his Intex donut... Certainly would be cheap, but I dont know how effective it is, tho. He just has it propped up on the sunny side of the pool.

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ETA the diagram did not show up correctly... the flow goes back and forth, not just up one side, tho Matt shot this idea out of the water anyway with his post below.

[matt4x4]

Large diameter pipe will give you almost no heat gain (unless you cover your entire lot with it). So if you go that way with 50 feet, you might get one or two degrees.
What you need is a manifold setup that divides your large inlet line into numerous smaller lines (same as a store bought panel).
The reason you have to do a manifold is to keep the pressure relatively even, forcing the water into one small line only would create a ton of backpressure and wreck your pump pretty quickly.

To retain heat, put a solar blanket on it over night, it will cut down on your incurred looses greatly.