First the use of isolation reservoirs are very common.

One pumps hot coolant into a tank of say salt solution but keep all of
the coolant in the pipe. In another loop that goes in the tank and
outside of the system - is other coolant. So coolant A never touches or
mixes with coolant B.

One is drawing heat off and putting it into the salt. The other takes
the heat from the salt and dumps it in the pool or in a water cooled
chiller.

Many machines work that way and every NUKE works that way as well.

Martin

On 12/13/2012 9:30 AM, wrote:
On Dec 12, 4:08 pm, Dan Espen wrote:
"Bruce L. Bergman (munged human readable)"

Another huge problem is the pool chemistry has to be kept Very Rigidly
Controlled or the pool water will rot out the water cooled condenser
REAL FAST - or clog it up with scale to the point it won't work
anymore, same outcome. Most people can't or won't be that anal about
the pool water, and the condensers can rot in a year or two.

It's not as huge a problem as you think.

For one, a pool should be kept near neutral.

I have a pool heater and years ago, after 2 years, the water manifold
developed a leak. The first thing the pool guy was asking is "did you
keep the water near neutral?". I did, but was unable to get any kind of
discount on the replacement.

When putting in the replacement, I noticed the interior is coated with
plastic. So, there's no water to metal contact.

I've been running heaters for more than 6 years now and I can tell you
the water in contact with a heated metal unit does not create any
special corrosion problems. A condenser shouldn't be any problem at
all.

I'm not sure what all the controversy is.

If this guy had his AC unit near his pool pump he just did what was
reasonable. The alternative would be to have a big fan roaring near the
pool with hot air being blown around. That's not something you want
near a pool.


Using water cooling is going to be quieter and save blower energy.
I believe other posters are correct, this won't heat the pool much but
it will save energy, be quiet, and not heat the air near the pool.

--
Dan Espen

If you watch the TOH video, the problem was not
the AC condenser unit making noise. It did not appear to be
particularly close to the pool. The problem was the pool is
shady and the homeowner wanted to heat the pool. The side
benefit was the alleged substantial savings in AC costs.