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Solar Spa Heater

by petastream on April 21, 2012 Table of Contents Solar Spa Heater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Intro: Solar Spa Heater . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 1: Parts list . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 2: Frame Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 3: Work area setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 4: Spiral construction at a snails pace. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 5: Completion of the spiral . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Step 6: Spiral deployment and finishing touches . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Related Instructables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 2 3 3 4 4 5 6

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Author:petastream
I'm a software developer and systems analyst for a small company in Southern California. I have a loving wife and wonderful son that are my pillars to stand on through think and thin. I love to create stuff with my hands and love it even more when it works!

Intro: Solar Spa Heater

Well it's that time of the year again here in Southern California time to fill up the spa and break out the BBQs. This has become a yearly ritual as well as a scathing reminder that electricity is not free. Any how my wife has been wanting to move in a greener direction and has been rather matter a fact about it as well. We now compost our organic waste and recycle that in to our garden. Her new kick was "How can we heat the spa without using the electronic heater?" She got up on the roof with 50ft of black hose and ran it back and forth a few times, hooked it to a pump and came up with the proof of concept. Yay! [The original idea was sourced from my coworker Gary which has a similar setup for his pool] Today we decided to move from conceptual proof to full on production. This instructable will walk you through the process that we went through and try to help you avoid some of the gotchas that we found along the way. Hope you enjoy reading this as much as we enjoyed building/documenting this project.

Image Notes 1. Completed coil on our south facing roof just after completion.

Step 1: Parts list

For around $60 US you can build this neat little system using the following parts purchased at your local mega hardware store. 20ft of 1/2in diameter PVC pipe 1 x 1/2in 4-way Cross PVC Fitting PVC cement for gluing PVC sections to 4 way fitting 500ft 1/2in diameter black drip irrigation hose 2 x drip irrigation to standard garden hose coupling Around 200 outdoor 8in zip ties 2 x 25ft or so normal garden hoses to use as water feed and return (Not included in $60 est as we had 2 on hand) 1 water pump to push water up to the roof and through the solar coil for heating. (Also not included in $60 est as we had one on hand)

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Image Notes 1. 5 ft long sections of 1/2 in PVC 4 way fitting join 4 legs together at center. 2. The helper :)

Image Notes 1. The wife that comes up with the ideas :) 2. 500 ft of black rip irrigation hose

Step 2: Frame Setup

This step is simple. You take the 20ft of PVC pipe and cut it down to four 5ft long sections. Glue them each in to the 4 way fitting using blue PVC cement or some similar form of adhesive. Let it dry a bit and voila your framework is complete. Wish it was that easy creating frameworks at my day job! I'm a software developer if your wondering.

Image Notes 1. 5 ft lengths joined together using 4 way PVC fitting at center

Step 3: Work area setup

Make sure you have room to move around the work area, as you will be doing a lot of walking (mostly in a circle). We setup a ladder with a pipe crossbeam which held the drip hose. This setup didn't work quite as well as we had hoped but did help keep the coil from getting horribly tangled. The frame was setup on a trash can that we filled part way with water to stabilize it from falling over. The spool unwinding was managed by my wife for the most part and my son helped guide the hose while I walked in circles like a carnival mule.

Image Notes 1. Make-shift feed guide (Used while son was on "extended" breaks) 2. Hose coil on make shift reel

Image Notes 1. Trash can 1/3rd filled with water for elevating frame while spooling hose

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Step 4: Spiral construction at a snails pace.

Photos don't show the first stages of construction as the idea to create an instructable from this project came slightly later in the project. The hose was spun on to the frame starting at the middle and working outwards. We took a lead of around 6ft and attached to one leg of the frame, then we guided it in to the middle to begin the spiral. There were issues with kinks and worked out that at around 5in from the lip of the fitting the curve was easy enough that we could form the shape without kinking the hose. I marked out this 5 in using a marker and fastened the hose to the frame to begin the spiral. Working in chunks of around 4 to 5 rotations seems to work well until the later stages of construction. After each set of rotations you loosely fasten the hose using zip ties. Working from the last tightened point you guide the coil so that the hose sits evenly next to the previous loop. Too tight and it will overlap, too loose and it will cause grief on the next loop.

Image Notes 1. Area that he is pointing at is where the water is fed in. Starting at the middle and working it's way out. 2. Inner circle starts at around 5in from the lip of the fitting (This seemed about the tightest radius we could manage before kinking the hose) 3. Around 6ft of excess hose left for cold water source hookup

Image Notes 1. 4 - 5 rotations at a time seems manageable

Step 5: Completion of the spiral

When we made it to the outer reaches of the spiral the weight of the hose was causing the frame to bow and was making it difficult to properly set the hose in relation to the proceeding loop. To remedy this we moved to the ground for the remaining loops. To do this we removed the remaining hose from our make shift spool mount and my wife walked the hose out while I followed behind her fastening the hose to the frame.

Image Notes 1. Laying down on the job!

Image Notes 1. The remaining hose when we decided to move the project to the grass. Not much really left at all.

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Image Notes 1. Graceful transition from outermost spiral loop to the hot water return.

Image Notes 1. Return hose 2. Cold feed hose

Step 6: Spiral deployment and finishing touches

Once the work was completed we carefully migrated the beast to the roof. We setup on the south facing side of the house. We fastened a rope to the center of the frame and tied it off on the north side of the house to prevent the coil from sliding down the roof. Once it was secured we connected the garden hose adapters to each of the leads coming from the coil and hooked up the cold water feed and hot water return hoses to the coil. (Note: Both our connector where female so we ran the return hose backward with the female end in the spa.) After the hoses were connected we hooked the cold water feed hose up a regular garden hose faucet and charged the system so to speak using the house hold water pressure. Once the water was completely through the system we connected the cold water feed to a pump in the spa and ran it for a test drive. Voila! it worked the pump was pumping water through the coil and it was returning to the spa. I will update this instructable with thermal findings once we get a full day to test the system. Cheers.

Image Notes 1. Completed coil on our south facing roof just after completion.

Image Notes 1. Cold water feed 2. Hot water return 3. Extra length of return hose coiled up before returning to the spa.

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Image Notes 1. Our pump hooked up to the cold water feed hose

Image Notes 1. Hot water return

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