Damn and blast

[Steve Firth]

While I was away in a place where the average daily temperature has been over 35C, I was getting nice warm showers for nothing by simply having a

100ft length of black polypipe laid on a south facing bank. I got to thinking about a more efficient arrangement, particularly for heating the swimming pool I intend to install and came up with what I thought was a brilliant idea.

Sadly, a bit of research shows someone else got there before me:

idea has been to use lengths of plastic pipe where this system appears to use an alloy panel, but not much difference in concept.

[Owain]

That's a good thing - it shows that your brilliant idea is workable.

Unless you wanted to patent or sell your idea it doesn't matter if someone else thought of it first.

After all, there wouldn't be much point in having this newsgroup (or certainly not many answers to questions) if someone else hadn't thought of something first.

Owain

[Peter Lynch]

This alloy panel: how much different is it from a radiator? I assume it's painted black - only I've been thinking the same thing (honest!)

Pete

[Steve Firth]

Very as far as construction goes. Each panel appears to consist of an extrusion with three chambers side by side. the central one appears to be an insulation air gap to prent cooling by counter-current flow. The water flows down one outer chamber around a bend and back down the other side so that the connectors are both on the same end, at least that's one option.

Yes, it's explained quite well on the website with several example layouts. I was thinking of having standard fenceposts and using black plastic tube instead of wire. This could either be threaded backwards and forwards or simply fit U bends at the end of each run.