Need opinions on solar heating possibilities

[wilcfr]

Ah there is the rub. This year has been a very cool, raining cloudy year so far. Our heat pump has been working a lot to keep the temps up. Solar would have been worthless this year.

[JohnT]

A data point for your info. My situation is a little different from you, but I hope the info is useful. I'm ~75 miles south of you. I have a 20X36 IG pool, with 6 4X8 panels for a total of 192 sq-ft. I can usually easily stay at 88-90 degrees most of the pool season with a solar cover on at night. This year has been tougher than last year, but I have never dropped below 84 since we started swimming.

[wilcfr]

John,

You must live somewhere around Seymour my home town. Like I said our biggest problem this year has been rain and more rain with the accompanying clouds and cool weather. Our poor old heat pump has been really overworked this season. We didn't replace it this year because it usually only runs until the first of June or about 3-4 weeks, but this year it has seldom stopped running except during our mini-heatwave last week. Of course then on the 4th we have the coolest high temp in Indy on the 4th for the second year in a row. Where is the global warming I was promised .

[CarlD]

Without getting into the fact that this IS due to that "global warming", without sunshine solar heating just doesn't work very well.

But it doesn't take more than 2 or 3 days of sun to bring it back to toasty--and the last couple of days have seen my pool go into the high 80's again!