I was thinking about swimming pools and how to heat them. I was looking at several notions, from solar to natural gas heaters.

It crossed my mind that most below ground swimming pools are aproned with concrete slab(s) - not only that, but most pools are in a sunny location.

In summer the slab around our pool gets fairly warm, warm enough in the mid-day heat to warrant my having to hose it down to make it comfortable to walk on with bare feet.

I also came across radiant floor heating - basically it is a hose stuck in the floor which has hot water running through it to heat the house.

do you think it is possible to run this back-wards? Using the cooler water in the swimming pool to cool the concrete by collecting the heat through a series of pipes in the concrete thus heating the water (which returns to the pool) while cooling the concrete so we can walk on it?

What do you think, possible?

Now I know that this may not be an effective way to heat the pool in winter time, but I noticed that early spring the slab gets a lot of sunlight, if anything it may increase the active swimming season.

I'm also looking at it from the perspective that that darn old slab gets mighty hot on the feet - If I could find a good way to cool that slab without having to run the hose first my pool area might see more activity in the summer.

Cheers

David

Concrete is not a great conductor of heat, and probably would respond slowly to heat exchange. (That's why it stays warm even after sunset). This means that you probably wouldn't get a good return of warm water until late in the day, and the water wouldn't cool the concrete until same. Now that I think about it though, this may just be what the doctor ordered for your application, giving you warmer water as the sun sinks lower. But with the energy it takes to pump the water through the system, it may not be efficient enough to justify. I hope someone more qualified can give you a more thorough answer. Good luck.

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me, although the amount of heat from the concrete apron may be small considering the volume of water in the pool. Why not just use a small pump to hose down the concrete with pool water, letting it drain back into the pool?

Even if the exchange is low, that would be ok. I would of course, be running the filter starting before sunrise (as usual).

As for pumping water and letting it drain back into the pool - Good idea on the surface, but the way that pools are made is to drain water away from the pool - I assume to keep the contaminates in the pool down.

I guess I'll try a few experiments, see what happens.

Cheers

David