Cooling a swimming pool

[Bob F]

I saw it at lowes, in the insulation area. I wouldn't be surprised to find it in H.D. also.

[Tony]

[borne]

90 is too hot when it is 90-95 outside. Ours would be at 90 if we did not use the fountain.

Draining and filling some with a hose won't be very effective as the hose outlet temp is 80 here in Florida.

Ice won't work either - even dry ice. You'd need way too much. The best bet is the fountain. It is esentially free because you use your pool pump to power it.

[Peabody]

I have a problem powering a fountain with the pool pump. There are three outlets where water flows from the pump back into the pool. Only one of them has a directional fitting that might allow me to connect a hose to it. The other two are just the ends of PVC pipe which are flush with the plaster. The outlet with the fitting is the smallest, and the longest run, of the three, and appears to be there only to direct a little water over the steps. I guess I just don't see how I would get a fountain to work unless it had its own pump, and I'd like to avoid additional energy use.

How much temperature reduction do you get with a fountain? Does all the return water flow go through it?

With respect to other ideas, I've had second thoughts about the foil-topped bubble wrap. It just bothers me that it would prevent any evaporation.

Another idea that came to me was to make a 10' x 5' frame of PVC pipe, with one cross-piece in the middle, which in theory should float, and lay white cloth on top of it. I think bleached (white) muslin comes in a 60" width, and a

10-foot length of that would cost less than $10.

So this would just float on the water, and the white cloth would in theory reflect/block the sunlight, but evaporation could still take place. At 50 sq ft each, five panels (probably less than $100 in total) would cover half the pool, which might make a significant difference in water temperature. And they would be pretty easy to put on and take off.

And another version of this - instead of white cloth, use aluminum foil strips, with maybe an inch of separation between them to let air through. That would be two 25-foot boxes of foil per panel. But foil might not do so well in wind.

[borne]

I have only 2 outlets and have plenty of flow from just one. I never really measured the temps more than once or twice, but our pool used to get up to 90 without the fountain cause we do not have a screen over it. Since the fountain, it is in the 85-86 range on the hottest weeks.

You could dran the pool and install fittings on the ends of the pvc outlets to allow you to connect to all 3 of them to power the fountain. I'm sure you'd be able to make up some type of manifold. However, then you won't have the water circulating.

You don't need a huge fountain. How about just connecting a small fountain very close to the exit of one pipe.

You probably have separate inputs and valves for the floor drain and the skimmers. But do you have separate output lines and valves? Can you add it easily? If you have a single outlet pipe from the filter going to all 3 outlets as I suspect, you could just add a Y there with valves. Then hook a flex hose to power the fountain and adjust the valves to regulate the flow to the fountain or pool outlets. What I mean is tap off directly after the filter rather than just one of the pool outlets.

[Peabody]

I've tried that, but with no restriction on the other outlets, the back pressure from the fountain just makes the water flow out through the other two. So I get a really weak fountain, which really did nothing for the temperature during the time I tried it.

No. The floor drain is piped up to the skimmer, then the total flow goes to the pump in one pipe.

No. There's only one output pipe, which branches somewhere underground near the pool.

No.

I guess that would be possible, but I'm just not ready to do that kind of replumbing yet. It's still not clear to me why the fountain would make all that much difference. Is it just evaporation?

[claude]

Pffftttt and here I am installing an expensive solar heating system for my pool. This is almost an insulting post :o)

[gfretwell]

That also a lunar cooling system at no extra charge when you run it at night so you are getting a heluva deal. Running your solars at night is a whole lot better than the fountain idea, particularly if water is expensive and it isn't raining much where you live.