Solar heaters for little pond

[mela]

Hi all shot of my water heater coils for the pond. The material for the coils is the black irigation flexible pipe. Bought from Home Depot 500ft role. The coils are about equal at 160ft +or- a foot or two. Mounted them on the porch roof. Just have to hook up the supply. The return is allready done. Put the garden hose from the well to get some of the air out last night. This a/m when the sun came up the heat started forceing the water out or the coils. Think this is gonna work well I hope.

Here are some pics. Can`t find just the ones for the heaters so I guess your gonna get all of the pond build.

Shure hope this works.

 

[mela]

more later when get the supply hooked up.

 

[Sploke]

So is the plan to pump the pond water through the coils for heat? Pretty clever, looks like it should work well.

 

[mela]

So is the plan to pump the pond water through the coils for heat? Pretty clever, looks like it should work well.

Yes is what I`m gonna do. I put the garden hose against the pipe and got nice warm water out. Oh the garden hose is hooked to the well not city water. When my welfare check gets here I`ll finish the job and show that too.

 

[mela]

Well got everything together. Hooked it into the fountain supply. Looks like it aught to work like gangbusters. Well it don`t. Guess it would have if the pump were putting out enough to make a fountain high as as the porch top. Oh well back to the drawing boards. I`ll get it figgered out shortly.

 

[SubRosa]

Well got everything together. Hooked it into the fountain supply. View attachment 204524View attachment 204525 Looks like it aught to work like gangbusters. Well it don`t. Guess it would have if the pump were putting out enough to make a fountain high as as the porch top. Oh well back to the drawing boards. I`ll get it figgered out shortly.

You're not thinking clearly! As long as both ends of the line are under water, your pump doesn't need to be able to pump as high as your roof. If there's no air in the lines your pump is merely recirculating the water and the only losses will be from friction. Rig up a way to prime the system and your pump will be fine.

 

[pbeemer]

what subrosa said. use a second pump for splash / fountain / aeration
much cheaper than a pump with a 20' pressure head

or better yet select the second pump for this -- you probably don't need a lot of flow for the heater -- and keep your original pump doing what it's doing

 

[mela]

Ok well am thinkin that if I mount a pump on the drain side of the heater that is under water that should get water flowin. Will see if it works today. You folks are such an asset to the fish kingdom. Sure appriciate the careful jarring of my feeble grey matter. TKS

 

[SubRosa]

Personally with the pump off I would hook a garden hose up to the output line coming off of the roof and backflow water through the system, purging all of the air. Once air stops coming out of the pump intake, as long as you keep the connection between the hose and the heater line under water in the pool while you disconnect it, (and assuming air isn't getting into the system somewhere else) you have a recirculating system. Just make sure the pump inlet and the outlet from the heater remains submerged at all times.

 

[mela]

WOW all great ideas. What I did was hook up the little spare pump in the supply line. Always have air getting in the system. After the pump was installed and pipes hooked up opened the suply valve and watched a few bubbles come out the discharge line. There was nothing going on after the bubbles stopped. Plugged is the little pump and bubbles all over the place then 80deg water. Throttled the supply valve and the water has stayed bout 74deg. Will have to shut off the supply valve when the sun goes down. I have a working soler water heater.:y220e: Now need lots of sunshine.


TKS everyone for the ideas.