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Originally Posted by BigDawgInLakeDenham
Thank you! We will eventually look beyond T&D but want their input to start. I'm well versed in building pools in the Mid-Atlantic but no experience in the Sunshine State. I will be in heaven now that I can access natural gas piped into my heaters if I want to. My concern with solar is overhead and overheating. Don't want all that on my roof materials and mostly don't want to overheat the pool. To me about 86 is getting too warm in the pool and the gentleman said solar had his pool up in the 90's.....scared me lol
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Don’t be scared of overheating with solar. I had the pool covered and the solar temperature set at 96 and it did what it’s supposed to do. You can set the controls to not run the solar above any maximum temperature you desire. Ours is set so when the solar gets to 6 degrees above the pool water the valve opens up to the solar system and the pump speed increases to push the water through the system. I had the max solar set at 96 with the pool covered before the heat wave because it was relatively cold and cloudy. When it warms up and is sunny up I set the max solar to 86 and keep the pool uncovered. During the summer I turn the solar off, but run it periodically just to flush chlorinated water through the system. I wouldn’t put solar on an older roof, the systems are typically warrantied for 12 years, but wouldn’t hesitate to put it on a new roof. Jacks solar is significantly less expensive that T& D and they use a higher quality solar panel and attachment system.
Just to give you an idea of how a heat pump, pool cover, and solar work. When we got to our Villages home in early January our pool was uncovered, the heater was off, the solar was set at 80, and the pool water was 66. At about 10 PM I covered the pool, turned on the heat pump, and turned up the solar to 96. Two evenings later the pool was at 91 and we were swimming. As loneg as I kept the pool covered when not using it, the solar maintained the heat after that except on cold cloudy days when I had to run the heat pump for a few hours per day. We use the pool every night, even when it was in the 40’s with steam coming off the 91 - 93 degree water. I only had to turn the solar down yesterday when it got to 80 degrees outside and was sunny. Hope that helps.