by cyprusgrump » Mon Feb 12, 2007 8:44 am
Our developer put huge obstacles in the way of having our pool heated and in the end we didn’t achieve it. Like you, they wanted to sell us the all-singing, all-dancing stand-alone pool heating technology.
Unless you want to swim in the middle of winter (i.e. you just want to extend the season a little) I’d recommend having some solar panels connected to the system – they can be hidden out of the way if you have a reasonable sized plot.
I’ve also thought that if the in and out pipes were laid in a matrix under our patio rather than going directly to the pump room they would collect a huge amount of energy when the sun is out.
Otherwise (again dependent on the layout of your house) get a heat exchanger fitted into your central heating system – our developer argued that we’d need a much bigger boiler to do this but of course you probably wouldn’t need to heat the house and the pool at the same time. I’ve seen a successful installation here and it only cost a few hundred Pounds.