A floating bubble cover is a cheep and effective way of retaining the water temperature, it will not heat or cool the water but will help in keeping the water cooler in summer and warmer in winter.
Put the cover on during the day to keep the sun off the water and take it off at night to help it cool down, the reverse can be done in the winter, they are easy to put on and remove, work best on skimmer pools as the cover is retained by the sides of the pool.
Not sure where you would find one in HH but they can be purchased on line.
Swimming Pool Cooling
Re: Swimming Pool Cooling
It is possible to have a cooling tower that has coils of tubing inside of it, through which you circulate the pool water with a small low power pump. The tower needs to be built over a container, or reservoir, that holds 2 or 3 hundred litres of water.
Another small pump is needed to pump this water to the top of the tower, where it is released through a shower head type fitting. The walls of the tower should be made up of "louvres" that allow air to flow through and direct the flow upwards. The structure should be made of material that will not corrode, and be about 20 ft high. It could be "camouflaged" with some trees without interfering with the air flow.
The cooling water supply should be controlled with a float valve, as again it is relying an evaporation to remove heat, so there will be a loss of water. With this type of arrangement you do not lose any of the treated water from the pool.
It may sound like some "Heath Robinson" affair, but these types of coolers were in wide spread use on dairy farms in Australia before the advent of refrigerated bulk milk vats, and were required by law to reduce the temperature of the milk before it went into the cans.
Another small pump is needed to pump this water to the top of the tower, where it is released through a shower head type fitting. The walls of the tower should be made up of "louvres" that allow air to flow through and direct the flow upwards. The structure should be made of material that will not corrode, and be about 20 ft high. It could be "camouflaged" with some trees without interfering with the air flow.
The cooling water supply should be controlled with a float valve, as again it is relying an evaporation to remove heat, so there will be a loss of water. With this type of arrangement you do not lose any of the treated water from the pool.
It may sound like some "Heath Robinson" affair, but these types of coolers were in wide spread use on dairy farms in Australia before the advent of refrigerated bulk milk vats, and were required by law to reduce the temperature of the milk before it went into the cans.
May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil know`s you`re dead!
Re: Swimming Pool Cooling
Nereus, a while a go I was reading about various types of cooling devices for houses, both passive and active, as I was curious about the possibilities of constructing a neutral energy house.....as again it is relying an evaporation to remove heat,....
One of the factors that was mentioned with regard to evaporation cooling was that the effectivness drops in conditions of high humidity as obviously there will be less evaporation than there would be in a dry atmosphere. I don't know if that would make it ineffective or just less efficient.
It seems to me that cooling a swimming pool would be easier in a desert type climate where you could either use the colder night time temperatures to cool the water or evaporation, as you mentioned, but in the tropics I think it might have to rely on refrigeration which seems a very large waste of energy for what it would achieve.
Re: Swimming Pool Cooling
In an sewer to the initial question
Has anyone seen a system where the water is refrigerated, I assume as it passes through the filter pot. I don't think it would be too difficult to put some refrigeration coils in there to allow the circulating water to pass over them. I would think it may be a standard thing in the ME where pool water temperatures must be almost unbearable most of the year. I've heard that some large hotels pass their pool water through their central air conditioning system, but I don't know if this results in cooler pool water, or a system like that does the opposite and extracts the coolness from the pool water for room air conditioning purposes.
Yes, there are units specifically designed for this purpose, there are caller reverse cycle heat pumps, they will heat the pool in the winter and cool the pool in the summer.
They work on the same principal as a domestic split unit A/C, we use them on all our pools in the Middle East and they work very well even in temperatures above 50C
The only drawback is they are expensive to purchase, for a small to medium domestic pool the cost price for the unit (here in Dubai) would be between THB 60 to 100K depending on the size of the pool, the smaller units come in single phase but for the larger units you would need 3 phase power, electricity consumption would depend on the size of the unit which will depend on the size of the pool.
Has anyone seen a system where the water is refrigerated, I assume as it passes through the filter pot. I don't think it would be too difficult to put some refrigeration coils in there to allow the circulating water to pass over them. I would think it may be a standard thing in the ME where pool water temperatures must be almost unbearable most of the year. I've heard that some large hotels pass their pool water through their central air conditioning system, but I don't know if this results in cooler pool water, or a system like that does the opposite and extracts the coolness from the pool water for room air conditioning purposes.
Yes, there are units specifically designed for this purpose, there are caller reverse cycle heat pumps, they will heat the pool in the winter and cool the pool in the summer.
They work on the same principal as a domestic split unit A/C, we use them on all our pools in the Middle East and they work very well even in temperatures above 50C
The only drawback is they are expensive to purchase, for a small to medium domestic pool the cost price for the unit (here in Dubai) would be between THB 60 to 100K depending on the size of the pool, the smaller units come in single phase but for the larger units you would need 3 phase power, electricity consumption would depend on the size of the unit which will depend on the size of the pool.
Re: Swimming Pool Cooling
Yes correct, Steve. I mentioned that with regard to the one that was posted previously. It may well be less efficient, but it has to do with the mass airflow as well as the humidity. Most big commercial building air conditioning systems use a similar type of condenser cooler, with the addition of a noisy fan to increase the air flow. The principle is the same with this, just trying to cool the pool water rather than the hot gas with the air con.
May you be in heaven half an hour before the devil know`s you`re dead!