My friend's pool temp. is only 11c, but he wants to swim...

[cyprusmax47]

My German friend phoned me the other day that he wants to come to Cyprus in the first week of March and using his pool, not knowing that the water temperature right now is 12c only.

Green Air installed a pool heating (air- to - water heat exchanger) 2 years ago and I will switch it on today, just 1 week before my friends arrive.

It will be a challenge for the system as there is no pool cover and night temperatures are only ca 8c at the moment. We will see if the requested water temperature of 24c will be achieved until then. Certainly his EAC bill will be much higher than usual and a good reason for me to suggest that he is installing and investing in a photo-voltaic system on his roof to produce his own electricity in future.

So I wonder what his pool temperature will be on the 4th of March....(any guesses??)

Max

[mike strand2]

It sounds warmer than the North Sea in August.

[trevnhil]

The first full year that we were here, relatives came to visit us in February.. We didn't have a pool but they were certainly in the sea down at Paphos

[Jimgward]

I was told by someone - that even a couple of days could heat the pool, using such a system, without a cover!

[Jim B]

I checked ours yesterday and it was 18c: we do have a pool cover and solar panels going through a heat exchanger. I turned the circulation pump on a couple of days ago.

Jim

[Anarita John]

We are both keen swimmers. Rosemary will go in when the water temp is 20c and I can just about cope with 24c. At present our water temp is 17c, although it was 14c a few days ago and less then 8c when we arrived three weeks ago. Our pool gets the sun all day and I am wondering if a solar blanket alone would get our pool to the required temperature for swimming, or whether we would need a pool heater.
On our net metering we have plenty of kw hours to spare so we could use these up with a pool heater.

[trevnhil]

That sounds like a good idea if you already have units being 'wasted'

[jeba]

I don´t regret having moved to Larnaca for the indoor pool of the local gym which is heated to 30 degrees. All year round.

[Jim B]

We are both keen swimmers. Rosemary will go in when the water temp is 20c and I can just about cope with 24c. At present our water temp is 17c, although it was 14c a few days ago and less then 8c when we arrived three weeks ago. Our pool gets the sun all day and I am wondering if a solar blanket alone would get our pool to the required temperature for swimming, or whether we would need a pool heater.
On our net metering we have plenty of kw hours to spare so we could use these up with a pool heater.

John
Like you we havle spare Kw and I am hoping to invest in an air pump and use that to heat the pool in Spring and Autumn and then assist the heating boiler in winter.

Jim

[daveg]

A solar cover is definitely a good idea.....used one for years....

[Dominic]

So what's the temp today then Max?

[Dominic]

Actually, you should take meter readings as well so we can see how much leccy is being used.

[Jimgward]

Great idea Dominic

[cyprusmax47]

So what's the temp today then Max?

Actually, you should take meter readings as well so we can see how much leccy is being used.

Well Dominic, I already took the reading of his meter before the pool heating started. So here some facts: 24 hour running time, air temperature 8-16 c, no sunshine today, pool temperature raised from 11 to 15c, consumption 70 kW/h inclusive 2 inverter air-cons running in the house to keep it 21c and low humidity 42 % RH, pool size 47 tons.

Max

[cyprusmax47]

Update:

second day yesterday pool heating running, no pool cover, now 19c, air temp. 11-18c, partly sun on the pool (big trees around) consumption so far 135 kW/h since switched on... but won't rise at the same speed as soon temperature gets higher the next days and the nights are still cold...

Max

[Dominic]

I moved Andros post and subsequent comments into their own thread.

[cyprusmax47]

Our two full bills since having our panels have both been the same, around €51. Our system is a 5kw one. In March we will not have any surplus units and will end up giving around 1500kw back to the eac. However, we are still on a learning curve as regards our net metering and were still frugal with our consumption for aircon in August and September. Also, we were not in Cyprus for as long in winter as we had planned.

You will have much more surplus units this year as the best month in Cyprus are June/July where one produces the most electricity. Your system was installed later in the year as I remember.

Some figures where you can roughly work out how much kW/h you can produce with your system in a certain month: per 1 kWp installed modules it is like that:
Jan.: 3.8 kWh, Feb.: 4.6 kWh, March: 5.6 kWh, and so on: 5.9, 6.0, 6.1, 6.0, 5.9, 5.9, 5.3, 4.2, and 3.4 in Dec.

So p.e. in May you should produce 30 kWh/day with your 5 kWp installation.

I hope that helps.

Max

[Anarita John]

Thanks for those figures Max. The figures for our solar system are slightly less than yours, but I have recorded our production and consumption on a spread sheet for the months we have been in Cyprus.
I think we may invest in a good quality solar blanket at first, as, according to adverts, it can increase the pool temp by 4c. Then we might go for an air pump electric pool heater, depending on our electric consumption.

Would be interesting to see how much electricity the pool heater has used. When we arrived our house temp was 13c. We ran 3, dual invertor air con units on heat overnight to get the temp to 20c, then just used the aircon when needed in individual rooms. The first day we used 55kw.

We arrived on 9th February and we only had 7 days when we produced less electricity than we used. 6 out of the 7 days were from the 9th Feb to the 15th.

Once the house was relatively warm and the outside temperature had risen to 13c at night and 18c during the day, we were only using around 20kw per day to power the house. Overall in February we used 67 kw from our EAC reserve of 1500Kw.

Our pool temp had got up to 18c in February, so an increase with a solar blanket of 4c and then a further 4c with a heater would make it swimmable at the end of Feb.

[cyprusmax47]

Thanks for those figures Max. The figures for our solar system are slightly less than yours, but I have recorded our production and consumption on a spread sheet for the months we have been in Cyprus.
I think we may invest in a good quality solar blanket at first, as, according to adverts, it can increase the pool temp by 4c. Then we might go for an air pump electric pool heater, depending on our electric consumption.

Would be interesting to see how much electricity the pool heater has used. When we arrived our house temp was 13c. We ran 3, dual invertor air con units on heat overnight to get the temp to 20c, then just used the aircon when needed in individual rooms. The first day we used 55kw.

We arrived on 9th February and we only had 7 days when we produced less electricity than we used. 6 out of the 7 days were from the 9th Feb to the 15th.

Once the house was relatively warm and the outside temperature had risen to 13c at night and 18c during the day, we were only using around 20kw per day to power the house. Overall in February we used 67 kw from our EAC reserve of 1500Kw.

Our pool temp had got up to 18c in February, so an increase with a solar blanket of 4c and then a further 4c with a heater would make it swimmable at the end of Feb.

My figures are long term average for Cyprus John. This winter was not a normal one, too many rainy or dull days. One can see that also in the 2 weeks delay of the almond blossom, compare with last year.

If you buy a pool cover then you will not use too much electricity with a heat pump as the losses at night are minimized. So my figures will tell you not too much. For example Saturday night the temperature dropped to 5c at my friends place with plenty of cold rain on top.

As you have so much kWh to spent before EAC is setting the meter to zero, I would give the pool a treat and run the pump a couple of days 24 hours.
Also I would measure the humidity in the house after that wet winter. If it is more than 60 % RH I would run one of your air cons on dehumidify mode and keep the room temperature with the other two above 21c.

Max

[Anarita John]

Max, what a good idea for anyone like us who has surplus kwh. One of our friends also has extra kwh to use before zero hour so I will pass this info on.
However, as I said earlier we are still on a learning curve with it. Yesterday we produced almost 30kwh. We now know that we will be able to use the aircon more in the summer.