- You can heat up your swimming pool
and keep it heated all season long
for around 100 dollars.
No, you don't need an expensive, you know,
gas pool heater.
All you need is the power of the sun,
a solar blanket, and effective tips
on how to use it properly so let's do it.
(upbeat music)
All right quick disclaimer,
when it comes to pool care everyone does it differently
and at Swim University this is just how we do it
so if I missed anything I apologize,
just leave a comment.
All right there are three different types
of solar pool covers out there
and they are solar blankets,
which looks like the bubble wrap.
There are solar rings which float on top of your pool,
they're like little rings, we'll get into that.
And then there are liquid solar covers.
All of them do basically the same thing
which is they don't actually heat your pool up,
they just keep the heat that naturally
comes in from the sun in your pool.
Now the way they do that is we'll
talk about solar blankets.
So solar blankets or solar covers,
they look like those giant pieces of bubble wrap
and they lay on top of the pool.
Bubble side down, helps to float.
What you're looking for if you want
to actually aid in the heating of the water
is a very light blue, an opaque, light blue cover
or a clear cover
and if you have, if you find a clear cover
with some silver on the bottom,
that's gonna help keep more heat in the pool
that is attracted from your solar cover,
but generally what's gonna happen
is the solar cover is not gonna actually
heat up the pool,
it's just gonna reduce evaporation
and keep the heat in your pool.
The same thing goes for solar rings
and liquid solar covers.
Solar rings are basically just little, tiny solar covers
that float in your pool.
So solar rings are easy,
they're just little discs, you throw them in
and they work basically the same way,
keeping heat, keeping the evaporation from happening
and thus keeping the heat in the water.
Liquid solar covers are the ones
that I get asked about the most.
Do liquid solar covers actually work?
Yes, if you we're talking about reducing evaporation
which is keeping heat in the water.
Will they attract heat to your pool?
No, they will not do that,
it's like a very small, molecule thick layer
that kinda just keeps everything from evaporating.
So that is what a liquid solar cover is.
Again, not gonna heat your pool
but it's gonna help reduce evaporation.
Now we're gonna talk about how to do this effectively,
how do you use a solar cover
so that it actually keeps the heat in the pool.
This is gonna sound weird,
but the sun comes out during the day,
we all know that, right?
We all know that.
So the sun comes out, it's heating up your pool,
whether you have a solar cover on it or not.
It's gonna heat the water.
At night however, the sun goes away,
it gets a little cooler out
because there's no sun
and that's when all the evaporation
and heat loss happens.
It all happens at night.
So when should you put a solar cover on your pool,
when should you put the solar rings on your pool?
At night, I know.
Sounds counterintuitive.
And make sure the filter is not running
if you have solar rings
or if you have a liquid solar cover
because the water movement will
break up the rings
and allow heat to escape.
Now there are some benefits over one another.
So for solar blankets, you know,
the actual big piece of bubble wrap
that you lay over the entire surface of the water,
what that's gonna do is it's actually
gonna help keep chemicals in your water
because the sun is not gonna be able to burn them off,
you're not gonna lose any through evaporation,
and it's gonna keep leaves
and other debris out of your pool
because you have a cover on your pool
so if you wanna keep it on during the day
and, you know, you're not going to be swimming in it,
that's fine, you should keep it on at night.
When it's all collecting stuff
it'll collect on top of the cover
and when you remove it,
you can shake all that stuff off, you don't need it.
Now if you have a solar blanket
and you find it hard to take on and off your pool,
what you can do is actually cut it
into smaller, more manageable pieces
and have it fit together like a puzzle in your pool.
Or you can invest in a solar reel
which will allow you to just roll it up
and then unroll it when you need it.
Now for solar rings,
while they might be easier to get off
and that is certainly a pro,
they are easy to take on and off your pool,
but the thing is is that there is gaps,
there's gonna have gaps in the water
where it's gonna be able to evaporate
so they're not as effective as a solar blanket.
So if you're gonna use liquid solar covers,
the biggest pro of a liquid solar cover
is that you just kinda add it to the pool
and it works,
but the con is that you have to
not run your filter system at night
which, you know, some people like to do
because it saves the money
by running you filter system at night
because of the electricity,
but if you're gonna be using a liquid solar cover,
it's gonna work really, really well at night.
Now if you have a gas pool heater, heat pump,
something that costs a lot of money
to actually heat the water in your pool,
I have good news for you.
If you wanna save some money on your gas bill,
on your electric bill, whatever you use,
you can use a solar cover, solar rings,
or a liquid solar cover to actually
keep the heat in the pool that you
generate through the gas pool heater
or the electric heater,
thus saving you money.
All right, let's answer some questions.
Now these questions are sponsored
by the Pool Care Handbook and Video Course
which is how we keep the lights on
here at Swim University,
it is our complete pool maintenance video course
with over 35 different video lessons
all on how to take care of your pool,
including solar cover and solar heating options.
It's all covered in here.
Plus we have an extensive 300 plus page
fully illustrated e-book
and it all comes together in one product.
So if you're watching this video,
thank you very much for watching this video.
You will be rewarded with a ten percent off coupon code,
just use the promo code video
when you're at checkout
and you will get ten percent off.
Okay, sponsorship over, promotion over,
let's get to the questions.
All right, Wayne asks,
I'm in the market for a new solar cover.
I asked my local pool company about them.
They say there are two different options
when it comes to solar blankets.
They say both are great,
but the thicker one will hold the heat in better.
Is that true?
I'm confused, I need some guidance.
My last solar cover only lasted three years
and totally disintegrated last August.
Well Wayne, I wanna say that yes,
your cover will last longer if you
get a thicker mill.
No, it will not heat your pool
any better if it's thicker.
In fact it's just gonna be harder
to take on and off your pool.
So yes, invest in the thicker mill
if you wanna keep it longer,
three to five years, sure.
But you can get away with a thinner mill
and it's still gonna do the same thing
as a thicker mill,
it's just not gonna last as long.
All right, speaking of how long
are these covers gonna last,
I have another question from Jay who says,
what is the life expectancy on a solar cover?
I've noticed that I've been finding little blue,
round disks in my skimmer basket
and my robot is picking them up as well.
Is this normal after a few seasons
or is it because when you have it rolled up
and it gets too hot
or could it be a chemically related issue?
Well it can be both of those things.
I can just be a cheap cover,
it can be that it's sitting out in the sun
and drying out,
it could just be from chemical use,
it could just be old, all those things.
Which I recommended to Wayne,
get a thicker mill, get a more,
if you want it to last a little bit longer,
invest in a nice, thick mill solar cover
and it should last you long.
It's gonna deteriorate, those things are gonna happen,
there is a lot of wear and tear on them.
But again, if you get a thicker mill,
it'll last you a good while.
They make a bunch of different mills.
You can get four mill, you can get eight mill,
you can get 12 mill,
you can get 16 mill which is really thick
and that should last you about five years,
hopefully and maybe even more
so a 16 mill is like, that's the one to get.
Okay, last question.
I have the opposite problem, my pool is too hot.
Do you have some ideas on how to cool it down a little?
It's too expensive to buy bags
of ice every day.
Yes, it is too expensive to buy bags of ice every day
and so there is three things that
I know you can do for sure.
One, you can not use a liquid solar cover,
a solar blanket, and solar rings
and then run your filter at night.
Like we said before,
if you wanna keep the heat from escaping,
you wanna not run your filter at night
and add either the solar blanket,
solar rings, or liquid solar cover.
But if you're trying to make heat escape from your pool,
run your filter at night,
break up the surface water,
and remove any landscaping that's around your pool.
If you have any landscaping that's
blocking the wind from blowing over your pool,
that's a great way to, you know,
just get rid of that
and the wind will blow it across your pool
and let that heat escape.
And then the third thing you can do
is install a fountain.
Anything that breaks surface tension
and gets that surface water moving, especially at night,
is gonna allow that heat to escape.
All right if you think I missed anything in this video,
please tell me in the comments,
that would be great.
And we have plenty more information
over at SwimUniversity.com.
Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel
if you wanna hear more about pool maintenance
and that's it.
So happy swimming.
(upbeat music)