I'm thinking of getting a small household solar panel, even if it just powers the pool. Does anybody have personal experience of this sort of thing?

What do you mean exactly?

One that generates electricity to run the pump or one that generates heat to heat the pool?

We heat our pool using solar power - we have panels on the pool house roof which heat water which is then pumped into the pool.

This method of heating the pool is more effective (in terms of cost and heat output) than using solar electricity or using a heat pump (in the ground).

I'm sure a photovoltaic panel would be useless for heating a pool.

Water heating panels would do it but I'm not sure about small. The ones I've seen have always been in large arrays.

Ah I see the confusion, no I want to generate electricity to run the pump & if viable the whole house.

I have a solar powered house, got pretty much all the gear from http://www.generador-electrico.com/ in Ronda. Pay Edwin a visit and he'll talk you through the various options and be able to show you working set-ups.

Hi

The last "quote" I had for a "all singing all dancing" solar system for a three bedroomed house was for about 25,000€. Not a firm quote, just an off the cuff rough figure.

Any experts out there that can can break the figure down into component parts with costs?

Davexf

Mine cost around 10k (DIY installation). 5.5kW for a 3 bed house but all gas kitchen (inc fridge) and no aircon or other electric heating. Can't recall the cost breakdown of the component parts!

When I looked into it, I seem to recall a figure of around 30k for not much more than 5.5kW (same supply as we have now). For that it would power everything - hob, aircon, w/m, kettle etc.

For us, to break even on the expenditure and to still have a connection to Iberdrola so that we can pump 'excess' power into the grid, would have taken over 30 years!


I would love to go green but at that cost - no way!

My household electricity bill on it's own is not too bad, my swimming pool however costs around €1k per year so I'm wondering if there is a budget system just to power the pump????

It sounds like your pump is on far too long.

How long do you run it every day? How big is the pump in Kw or HP?

What is the use of the pool - number of swimmers and time in pool on a daily basis?

I don't think I spend more than €100 a year - probably half that as we are on the off peak tariff.

€100 per year?????????? OMG then yeah mine is on too long! I switched it off last month for the winter & my bill dropped €100!!!

Hi

Remember that a salt water pool can need the pump to work up to 8 hours a day in summer and at least an hour a day at this time of year.

Davexf

A tip from my plumber son for heating pools.

Get half a dozen old panel radiators, dig a pit into the garden about 6 inches deep, lay the panels into your largish hole and link the inlets and outlets together. One inlet pipe to pump house, one outlet pipe again to pump house.

Backfill the hole with soil. Job done, this will add a massive amount of hot water to the pool. If you want to get carried away and keep the water 'clean' and 'dirty'. Then use the panels to heat a hot water cylinder on a closed loop system.

Tell me how this makes hot water and what happens in a few months when the rads rust ?