Cross-posted from the 'Home Improvement' board.

Our pool gets a lot of direct sun, and we're at that point in the year where it really doesn't even offer any relief. Today I jumped in after some yard work and for the first time it actually HURT - a bit like a burn. Ridiculous.

Thinking seriously about getting a chiller, and not one of those decorative spray fountains that floats on top of the water and promises to knock 2 or 3 degrees off.
I'd LOVE to get it down to New Braunfels river temp, but that's probably asking too much.

Anyone have experience with this? Recommendations? We've got about 27k gallon.

What's your water temp?

drmwvr said:

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What's your water temp?

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Eleventy billion. Give or take.

My brother's pool is (was) in direct sunlight as well. We ended up putting three posts in the ground around the pool and set up one of those large triangular sail shades over the pool. It's nice to swim in the shade. Wasn't so much fun swimming in direct sunlight all day. I couldn't tell you the temp difference but seems to be a lot cooler.

My neighbor has one that works great... it's essentially a very large evaporative cooler and drops the pools temp 10+ degreees (low 90s to low 80s) when running at night. I don't remember the brand but will try to circle back with the info.

My gym has an outdoor lap pool. They added a chiller about 2 months ago and it's night and day difference. I used to dread getting in as it felt like bath water. Now it's amazing, actually feels chilly.

Don't have much to add other than that. I'd definitely have one if/when we get a pool.

I added this to my pool last summer, and it dropped the temp from 92 degrees to the mid-80s virtually overnight.

https://amazon.com/Splash-Pools-30700-Waterfall-Fountain/dp/B0026MTCOU/ref=pd_sim_86_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B0026MTCOU&pd_rd_r=TC67FM5V4ZTTW62CQYDW&pd_rd_w=dVMC5&pd_rd_wg=HtSUP&psc=1&refRID=TC67FM5V4ZTTW62CQYDW

I screwed it into my pool cleaner return since I have a Nautilus robot. I'd spend the 20 bucks and try this before going crazy for a couple thousand.

My neighbor installed 4 of these and his pool is in the low 80s.

https://amazon.com/Pool-Cooler-Decreases-temperature-Dismantle/dp/B00E7HTWPQ/ref=asc_df_B00E7HTWPQ/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=198069309089&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=6353626098411285553&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9027720&hvtargid=pla-367156762961&psc=1

My BIL just put a new pool in with a chiller and we were there at the 4th. It was amazing. Don't know the temperature, but in scorching Texas summer heat with little to obstruct the sunlight, the water was more than comfortable, even after 20 kids swam all afternoon filling it with warm pee.

Parents put a UV screen over about 2/3 of the pool and temps dropped almost 10 deg.

Temp of ours last Saturday was 97. I haven't checked - or gotten in it - since.

We just had our chiller installed this weekend. It's plumbed but not powered up yet. I will report back. Our water temp get in the upper 90's in August. I have tried the sprinkler systems and it will drop the temp a few degrees, but not to an enjoyable level.

Word of note, the chiller is massive.

All of these recommended systems work by using evaporative cooling. Water is cheaper than electricity, but I wonder how much extra water these systems use. Especially that miniaturized cooling tower that dummble just put a link to above.

This is the exact one my neighbor put in. Works great but is very large!

ice machine

There are 2 ways to cool a pool: evaporation and mechanical cooling. Mechanical cooling will control/get down to whatever temperature you want, but it will cost you. A lot.

1 ton of cooling is 12,000 BTU/hr (1 ton of cooling is the amount of heat 1 ton of ice will do). To drop a 20k gallon pool 10F you need to do about 1.6 MMBTU or 139 tons of cooling. To do this over the course of a day, you would need approximately a 6 ton AC unit equivalent. That would run all day.

(Q = m*Cp*dT; m = 20k gallons --> 2,673.61 ft3 --> 166,833 lb; Cp = 1 BTU/lb F heat capacity = 1,668,333 BTU cooling needed)

If you do evaporative cooling, you are boiling water to provide the cooling. You are limited to what the dew point is in the air. Essentially when you get to 100% humidity, you can't get any more water to evaporate. So hot days with low humidity you can get good cooling. For every pound of water you evaporate, you can absorb about 1000 BTU. So do to the same above, you have to evaporate about 210 gallons of water (assuming 85F water). This is about 9 GPH or 0.145 GPM.

You can pump water into the air and have the wind evaporate it drop the temperatures. Pump uses way less electricity than mechanical (this giant AC) cooling. But you're limited to ambient conditions.

You can do basic math easily if you are going to install a cooler.

~egon

Dr. Doctor said:

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There are 2 ways to cool a pool: evaporation and mechanical cooling.

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You mean to say you don't have your pool hooked up to a geothermal loop drilled in your backyard?

Quote:

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This is about 9 GPH or 0.145 GPM.

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6480 gallons per month is about $100/month in water bill.

and $100 a month for a few months during the summer is well worth it to keep the pool usable/refreshing.

Dr. Doctor said:

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There are 2 ways to cool a pool: evaporation and mechanical cooling. Mechanical cooling will control/get down to whatever temperature you want, but it will cost you. A lot.

1 ton of cooling is 12,000 BTU/hr (1 ton of cooling is the amount of heat 1 ton of ice will do). To drop a 20k gallon pool 10F you need to do about 1.6 MMBTU or 139 tons of cooling. To do this over the course of a day, you would need approximately a 6 ton AC unit equivalent. That would run all day.

(Q = m*Cp*dT; m = 20k gallons --> 2,673.61 ft3 --> 166,833 lb; Cp = 1 BTU/lb F heat capacity = 1,668,333 BTU cooling needed)

If you do evaporative cooling, you are boiling water to provide the cooling. You are limited to what the dew point is in the air. Essentially when you get to 100% humidity, you can't get any more water to evaporate. So hot days with low humidity you can get good cooling. For every pound of water you evaporate, you can absorb about 1000 BTU. So do to the same above, you have to evaporate about 210 gallons of water (assuming 85F water). This is about 9 GPH or 0.145 GPM.

You can pump water into the air and have the wind evaporate it drop the temperatures. Pump uses way less electricity than mechanical (this giant AC) cooling. But you're limited to ambient conditions.

You can do basic math easily if you are going to install a cooler.

~egon

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dummble said:

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We just had our chiller installed this weekend. It's plumbed but not powered up yet. I will report back. Our water temp get in the upper 90's in August. I have tried the sprinkler systems and it will drop the temp a few degrees, but not to an enjoyable level.

Word of note, the chiller is massive.

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How much for this system and who'd you get to do it?

Fox Family Pools, about $3,200 installed

This was part of a remodel of plaster, tile, coping and equipment

Dr. Doctor said:

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There are 2 ways to cool a pool: evaporation and mechanical cooling. Mechanical cooling will control/get down to whatever temperature you want, but it will cost you. A lot.

1 ton of cooling is 12,000 BTU/hr (1 ton of cooling is the amount of heat 1 ton of ice will do). To drop a 20k gallon pool 10F you need to do about 1.6 MMBTU or 139 tons of cooling. To do this over the course of a day, you would need approximately a 6 ton AC unit equivalent. That would run all day.

(Q = m*Cp*dT; m = 20k gallons --> 2,673.61 ft3 --> 166,833 lb; Cp = 1 BTU/lb F heat capacity = 1,668,333 BTU cooling needed)

If you do evaporative cooling, you are boiling water to provide the cooling. You are limited to what the dew point is in the air. Essentially when you get to 100% humidity, you can't get any more water to evaporate. So hot days with low humidity you can get good cooling. For every pound of water you evaporate, you can absorb about 1000 BTU. So do to the same above, you have to evaporate about 210 gallons of water (assuming 85F water). This is about 9 GPH or 0.145 GPM.

You can pump water into the air and have the wind evaporate it drop the temperatures. Pump uses way less electricity than mechanical (this giant AC) cooling. But you're limited to ambient conditions.

You can do basic math easily if you are going to install a cooler.

~egon

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If I can get a 20lb bag of ice at bucees for $1, how much cooling can I get for $500?

You do the math because I'm lazy.
Thanks.

Dr. Doctor said:

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There are 2 ways to cool a pool: evaporation and mechanical cooling. Mechanical cooling will control/get down to whatever temperature you want, but it will cost you. A lot.

1 ton of cooling is 12,000 BTU/hr (1 ton of cooling is the amount of heat 1 ton of ice will do). To drop a 20k gallon pool 10F you need to do about 1.6 MMBTU or 139 tons of cooling. To do this over the course of a day, you would need approximately a 6 ton AC unit equivalent. That would run all day.

(Q = m*Cp*dT; m = 20k gallons --> 2,673.61 ft3 --> 166,833 lb; Cp = 1 BTU/lb F heat capacity = 1,668,333 BTU cooling needed)

If you do evaporative cooling, you are boiling water to provide the cooling. You are limited to what the dew point is in the air. Essentially when you get to 100% humidity, you can't get any more water to evaporate. So hot days with low humidity you can get good cooling. For every pound of water you evaporate, you can absorb about 1000 BTU. So do to the same above, you have to evaporate about 210 gallons of water (assuming 85F water). This is about 9 GPH or 0.145 GPM.

You can pump water into the air and have the wind evaporate it drop the temperatures. Pump uses way less electricity than mechanical (this giant AC) cooling. But you're limited to ambient conditions.

You can do basic math easily if you are going to install a cooler.

~egon

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I don't understand any of that, but thank you. In the future, please post links to sites like Amazon where I can buy the gizmo and sit inside my house while someone installs it.

Gizmos that have buttons labeled things like 'cool', 'cold', & 'Guadalupe River New Braunfels' would be greeeeaatt.

Dr. Doctor - Based on your calculation you would need 1.7 MMBTU to cool the pool 10 degs. Thus a 71,000 BTU heat pump would run for about 24 hours to cool the pool down to desired temp once it was fully heated.

My pool appears to rises 20 degrees from April to end of July (73-93 deg). So 20 deg would equate to 3.4 MMBTU or 48 hours of run time. But that is over 150 days. While that works out to be about 20 minutes as day to maintain temp, I know that is not reality with wind, solar heating etc.

Maintaining the water temp would be a lot easier than trying to cool it all at once. so its not the shock of 1.7 MMBTU

Why would you want the pool at 73? Why don't you just move to Minnesota?

From what I have researched this is probably what you need. This is heat pump and will heat and cool your pool.

https://www.lesliespool.com/Aquacal-HeatWave-SuperQuiet-Icebreaker-SQ166R-Heat-and-Cool-Pump/SQ166R.htm?

Scruffy said:

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Dr. Doctor said:

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There are 2 ways to cool a pool: evaporation and mechanical cooling. Mechanical cooling will control/get down to whatever temperature you want, but it will cost you. A lot.

1 ton of cooling is 12,000 BTU/hr (1 ton of cooling is the amount of heat 1 ton of ice will do). To drop a 20k gallon pool 10F you need to do about 1.6 MMBTU or 139 tons of cooling. To do this over the course of a day, you would need approximately a 6 ton AC unit equivalent. That would run all day.

(Q = m*Cp*dT; m = 20k gallons --> 2,673.61 ft3 --> 166,833 lb; Cp = 1 BTU/lb F heat capacity = 1,668,333 BTU cooling needed)

If you do evaporative cooling, you are boiling water to provide the cooling. You are limited to what the dew point is in the air. Essentially when you get to 100% humidity, you can't get any more water to evaporate. So hot days with low humidity you can get good cooling. For every pound of water you evaporate, you can absorb about 1000 BTU. So do to the same above, you have to evaporate about 210 gallons of water (assuming 85F water). This is about 9 GPH or 0.145 GPM.

You can pump water into the air and have the wind evaporate it drop the temperatures. Pump uses way less electricity than mechanical (this giant AC) cooling. But you're limited to ambient conditions.

You can do basic math easily if you are going to install a cooler.

~egon

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If I can get a 20lb bag of ice at bucees for $1, how much cooling can I get for $500?

You do the math because I'm lazy.
Thanks.

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You get 10,000 lb of cooling or 5 tons.

But Buc-ee's ice is not $1. It is $1.39 at 35 and 288 (as of this morning) for an 8lb bag. So you won't get 500# for $500.

And don't forget Uncle Sam and Cousin Tex. 'Cuz they don't forget you...

~egon

My pool is 35,000 gallons, I live in Houston and the pool gets no shade until 6:30PM. I installed two of these cooling towers into my returns and I haven't seen much of a difference. The pool temperature drops from 92 degrees during the day to about 87 degrees at night. When we swim the pool is close to 92.

I don't have a high speed jet, my pool pump is a pentair variable speed and runs at 3450HP when at the highest. The towers spray water but there isn't much spray from about halfway up. I run the pump at night from 10PM to 10AM at the highest speed, this time typically corresponds with when the air temp is lower than the water temp. I then run it a a low speed from 10AM-5PM just to keep the water circulating. I also have been running the water fall feature and water slide at night and haven't noticed a temperature drop. My guess is i'm not getting enough pressure and water flow through the cooling towers to see an impact? I've thought about adding one more tower to see if it helps. Any ideas or thoughts?

https://amazon.com/Pool-Cooler-Decreases-temperature-Dismantle/dp/B00E7HTWPQ/ref=asc_df_B00E7HTWPQ/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=198069309089&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=6353626098411285553&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9027720&hvtargid=pla-367156762961&psc=1

Scruffy said:

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Dr. Doctor said:

---

There are 2 ways to cool a pool: evaporation and mechanical cooling. Mechanical cooling will control/get down to whatever temperature you want, but it will cost you. A lot.

1 ton of cooling is 12,000 BTU/hr (1 ton of cooling is the amount of heat 1 ton of ice will do). To drop a 20k gallon pool 10F you need to do about 1.6 MMBTU or 139 tons of cooling. To do this over the course of a day, you would need approximately a 6 ton AC unit equivalent. That would run all day.

(Q = m*Cp*dT; m = 20k gallons --> 2,673.61 ft3 --> 166,833 lb; Cp = 1 BTU/lb F heat capacity = 1,668,333 BTU cooling needed)

If you do evaporative cooling, you are boiling water to provide the cooling. You are limited to what the dew point is in the air. Essentially when you get to 100% humidity, you can't get any more water to evaporate. So hot days with low humidity you can get good cooling. For every pound of water you evaporate, you can absorb about 1000 BTU. So do to the same above, you have to evaporate about 210 gallons of water (assuming 85F water). This is about 9 GPH or 0.145 GPM.

You can pump water into the air and have the wind evaporate it drop the temperatures. Pump uses way less electricity than mechanical (this giant AC) cooling. But you're limited to ambient conditions.

You can do basic math easily if you are going to install a cooler.

~egon

---

If I can get a 20lb bag of ice at bucees for $1, how much cooling can I get for $500?

You do the math because I'm lazy.
Thanks.

---

About 1 Yetis worth - give or take

you can make a homemade aerator with some PVC and screw it onto one of the pool returns.

Southside AG said:

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My pool is 35,000 gallons, I live in Houston and the pool gets no shade until 6:30PM. I installed two of these cooling towers into my returns and I haven't seen much of a difference. The pool temperature drops from 92 degrees during the day to about 87 degrees at night. When we swim the pool is close to 92.

I don't have a high speed jet, my pool pump is a pentair variable speed and runs at 3450HP when at the highest. The towers spray water but there isn't much spray from about halfway up. I run the pump at night from 10PM to 10AM at the highest speed, this time typically corresponds with when the air temp is lower than the water temp. I then run it a a low speed from 10AM-5PM just to keep the water circulating. I also have been running the water fall feature and water slide at night and haven't noticed a temperature drop. My guess is i'm not getting enough pressure and water flow through the cooling towers to see an impact? I've thought about adding one more tower to see if it helps. Any ideas or thoughts?

https://amazon.com/Pool-Cooler-Decreases-temperature-Dismantle/dp/B00E7HTWPQ/ref=asc_df_B00E7HTWPQ/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=198069309089&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=6353626098411285553&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9027720&hvtargid=pla-367156762961&psc=1

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I think the whole point with these things is to not run your pool during the day. You are capturing heat.

Run it an night only.

There is not enough pressure at the low speed for water to come out of the pipes, the water only very slowly circulates at the low speed. Looking at the pool, you wouldn't even know the returns we're pursuing water.

So run the pump at a higher speed and less time. As long as you are turning the water over x amount of times you are fine.