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Don Y[_3_]

On 10/5/2015 9:42 PM, wrote:
On Mon, 05 Oct 2015 19:33:29 -0700, Don Y
wrote:

In places with high cooling loads, you can purchase a heat exchanger
to harvest "waste heat" from your ACbrrr and redirect this to heat your
pool, hot tub, etc. Thermostatic controlled so you don't end up
feeling like a boiled lobster (if your cooling load is considerably
larger than your hot tub "heating load").

No idea as to installed cost but sure looks like a clever idea!

The problem is you tend to use a hot tub when it is cool enough
outside where the A/C is not on.

That depends on where you live! : Here, it's rarely cool enough
to NOT have (or want) the ACbrrr to be on!

I found solar collectors work well tho. If you are really up there in
the frozen north you may need glazed collectors instead of the regular
open pool collector like I can use.
I can get my tub about 15-20 degrees warmer than ambient air for free
tho during the day and that is a nice head start before I turn the
heat on.

A "bubble wrap" cover (i.e., just small pockets of trapped air) on a
swimming pool, here will typically bring the water temperature up to
105+F essentially "for free" (trap any captured heat so it isn't
lost overnight when ambient temps drop to 90's)

Many folks have hundreds of feet of black tubing coiled on their
roofs as "poor man's pool heaters". I don't think I know anyone who
actually burns energy to heat their pool (though a friend in Chicago
used natural gas to heat his indoor pool -- no other practical
options in that climate)

OTOH, I think folks *do* actively heat their hot tubs/spas -- perhaps
because many of those are in covered structures and can't benefit from
direct solar.