Going Solar need your help

[TMan]

Thx TP, I have an AG but I'm plumbing it with schd. 40 anyway, and will T it in, almost finished. Another issue, I'm using a SWG too and want to plumb it in Before the solar heater, not after. This is because the model I have reduces chlorine output when the water gets warm, anything above 90-degrees for mine and the 'check cell' light starts flashing. I expect the heated return water to be well above that. Then it will not be generating at optimum meaning more run time during the evening/morning, cooling off the pool and then I'm going backwards. It'a a Goldline AquaTrol for AG pools and works well, within a range. What do you think of running the chlorinated water thru the solar heaters? I'm guessing that now it's hotter, chlorinated water being returned to the pool.

[CarlD]

Thx TP, I have an AG but I'm plumbing it with schd. 40 anyway, and will T it in, almost finished. Another issue, I'm using a SWG too and want to plumb it in Before the solar heater, not after. This is because the model I have reduces chlorine output when the water gets warm, anything above 90-degrees for mine and the 'check cell' light starts flashing. I expect the heated return water to be well above that. Then it will not be generating at optimum meaning more run time during the evening/morning, cooling off the pool and then I'm going backwards. It'a a Goldline AquaTrol for AG pools and works well, within a range. What do you think of running the chlorinated water thru the solar heaters? I'm guessing that now it's hotter, chlorinated water being returned to the pool.

Using sched 40 and running chlorinated water through your solar panels is no problem. I do both.

I have separate returns for my solar panels. The pool manufacturer, Fanta-Sea does it that way--but they put the solar return near the main return. Since the main is high pressure and the solar return is low pressure I don't see how you could easily combine them and it's very easy to plumb separate ones (unless you have a concrete pool).

When I modified the Fanta-Sea system to split the panels into two groups, I added two returns at the far end of the pool. The two returns allowed me to run higher pressure (and therefore about a 40% increase in flow) through the panels, meaning my water warms faster--the system is more efficient. I cut the returns in during the off-season when I had lowered the water, using a hole-saw of the correct size. It was a fairly easy job. The old solar return I converted into an over-flow by having the hose that came out of it go up first to maximum desired level before going down to a french drain.