Inspired by other posts, especially the Polaris Socket Cooler here Cooling A Pool - Further Reading, I wanted to share a solution I landed on that's working pretty well for a fraction of the cost of a chiller. Info follows pictures.
We have a shallow (3-5' depth) in-ground pool in full sun and the temperature will reach the 90s during peak heat. Some day I will probalby put up some shade over the pool, but not looking forard into sinking the posts. I'll hit rock after 6 inches of soil, which might explain why the pool is shallow. One good thing about full sun is not much in the way of leaves to clean up.
I built it all out of threaded pipe to experiment and have left it so because it's easy to assemble, install, remove. The down side is that it leaks just a bit because I can't get things lined up just so without making it really hard to unscrew. Another downside is that the stright sections (nipples?) are sched 80 so it's pretty heavy. I couldn't find threaded sched 40 pipe, just fixtures, I suspect because the threads would go too deep. It screws into a return port socket which use standard threading. Just had to remove the eyeball and screw in the shortest nipple available, which is all threads.
To get full effect I put a ball valve on the other return. I close the valve most of the way to force most of the return through the cooler. The elbow keeps the valve from jutting too far into the pool and runs the remaining return water around the edge of the pool to maintain circulation to the skimmer with just one return. I think I might be lucky to have only two returns, otherwise I don't think I could get enough water through the cooler for effective temperature reduction. If you have a nicer pool, I think you could wire this contraption up to a hose using a bucket like some other solutions on the Cooling_A_Pool page. The water breakers are rated for 11 gpm. I'm not sure how much water my pump moves, but I know my hose is only good for 6 gpm or so. YMMV.
When cooling isn't needed I open the valve all the way and water only arcs out of the cooler 6 inches or so. In the fall I remove all the parts and replace the eyeballs.
I was worried that I'd put too much back pressure on the pump so went with 4 nozzles and haven't tried it with fewer. But there's no pressure change on the filter valve gauge whether the ball valve on the second return is fully open or closed. I'm also worried someone's going to grab onto it and wrench it and the return socket out of the wall, but so far so good.
Running w/ the normal 1-speed filter pump cycle 10 hours, all during daylight it seems to be good for 4-5 degree Fahrenheit reduction in pool temp as measured by my SWG. I was suprised, but the surface water downstream of where it lands is noticably cooler and the additional evaporation roughly lines up with the math to drop my pool temp that much.
I have an SWG, but I don't get much salt deposits on anything and the nozzles don't clog.
Most of the parts are either plain old threaded PVC straight sections, elbows or Ts. The interesting parts are:
We have a shallow (3-5' depth) in-ground pool in full sun and the temperature will reach the 90s during peak heat. Some day I will probalby put up some shade over the pool, but not looking forard into sinking the posts. I'll hit rock after 6 inches of soil, which might explain why the pool is shallow. One good thing about full sun is not much in the way of leaves to clean up.
I built it all out of threaded pipe to experiment and have left it so because it's easy to assemble, install, remove. The down side is that it leaks just a bit because I can't get things lined up just so without making it really hard to unscrew. Another downside is that the stright sections (nipples?) are sched 80 so it's pretty heavy. I couldn't find threaded sched 40 pipe, just fixtures, I suspect because the threads would go too deep. It screws into a return port socket which use standard threading. Just had to remove the eyeball and screw in the shortest nipple available, which is all threads.
To get full effect I put a ball valve on the other return. I close the valve most of the way to force most of the return through the cooler. The elbow keeps the valve from jutting too far into the pool and runs the remaining return water around the edge of the pool to maintain circulation to the skimmer with just one return. I think I might be lucky to have only two returns, otherwise I don't think I could get enough water through the cooler for effective temperature reduction. If you have a nicer pool, I think you could wire this contraption up to a hose using a bucket like some other solutions on the Cooling_A_Pool page. The water breakers are rated for 11 gpm. I'm not sure how much water my pump moves, but I know my hose is only good for 6 gpm or so. YMMV.
When cooling isn't needed I open the valve all the way and water only arcs out of the cooler 6 inches or so. In the fall I remove all the parts and replace the eyeballs.
I was worried that I'd put too much back pressure on the pump so went with 4 nozzles and haven't tried it with fewer. But there's no pressure change on the filter valve gauge whether the ball valve on the second return is fully open or closed. I'm also worried someone's going to grab onto it and wrench it and the return socket out of the wall, but so far so good.
Running w/ the normal 1-speed filter pump cycle 10 hours, all during daylight it seems to be good for 4-5 degree Fahrenheit reduction in pool temp as measured by my SWG. I was suprised, but the surface water downstream of where it lands is noticably cooler and the additional evaporation roughly lines up with the math to drop my pool temp that much.
I have an SWG, but I don't get much salt deposits on anything and the nozzles don't clog.
Most of the parts are either plain old threaded PVC straight sections, elbows or Ts. The interesting parts are:
- 4 x Dramm Water Breaker https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B000HHSAR6/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
- 4 x male threaded pvc to male hose thread adaptor like the next link but 1 1/2" like the rest of the plumbing to match my return socket. Largest selection of common and unique PVC pipe fittings
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