My wife and I have an in-ground pool in a large Arizona Room. (An Indoor pool). While having an indoor pool is nice, we haven’t gotten to use it yet, because IT IS COLD! Being indoors it receives almost no sunlight, and so it doesn’t warm. Enter the solar water heater.

We did something similar to this:

Total cost was about $50.

• $35 -- 500′ roll of 1/2″ “funny pipe” hose.
• $15 -- Misc Fittings to go from pool filter to the heater.

The final result is great! The flow isn’t very much (it has less than 10psi of pressure). The pool water enters the filter at about 80 degrees (the top layer of water in the pool is warm, but once you go down about 6″ it drops to below 60). And the water leaving the heater is 95 degrees when the heater is in the sunlight. If there is no sunlight, the heater effectively stops working, even though the ambient temperature is 90+.

We placed the output of the heater into the bottom of the pool so that the hot water goes into the bottom where the cold water is, we are hoping this helps to mix the water some.

Pictures:

We want to make this a permanent part of the pool, and mount it on the roof instead of just placing it on the grass. We aren’t sure yet how to do it in a way that looks professional yet. We’re still working on it. We have a few ideas, but we aren’t set on anything yet. Fortunately, in a few more weeks, the pool should be warm enough, and we can pack the heater away until winter.