Plumbing to a Swimming Pool heat exchanger

[cwmcobra]

Well, I survived my first winter with the OWB (Cozeburn 450) and we are now in the process of installing the swimming pool. I've purchased a water to water heat exchanger and all the controls to heat with my OWB. Any experience here on how to plumb the PEX lines? My setup is a bit complex, since I want to tee into the PEX circuit that heats my shop in the winter. So, I need the ability to turn off water to the shop when heating the pool and vice versa. I also want to setup the pool circuit so I can gravity drain the lines before the winter freeze.

My initial plan is to setup the plumbing with ball valves to select the circuit, much like the valves used to select bypass or flow through a water softener. I think I can work out that system, but if any of you have already done one like it, I'd love to see your schematics/pictures. For the ability to drain the pool lines in the fall, I'm thinking of installing the PEX lines above ground with a dump valve in the middle of each. Thinking I can then open those valves in the fall to drain the lines. Any other ideas/experiences that I should consider?

Finally, for those that use an OWB to heat their pools in the summer, do you also heat your house water? I'm thinking the pool will not require heat for the entire summer, so it's probably not worthwhile to plumb the house circuit to separate the water heater from the central heat. Again, any experience would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance for your advice.

Cheers!

Chuck

 

[cwmcobra]

Well, I finally got this project done. It sure took longer than I expected, and there was alot of cost in the components, but it is done. My woodburner is now heating my pool. I plumbed it into the secondary circuit in my boiler, the one that heats my shop in the winter. I set it up with ball valves to select either the shop or the pool and ball valves to vent and drain the pool circuit before winter. Here are some pictures if anyone is interested. Half the challenge was fitting it into the back of the bolier so that is coexists with the other circuits.

I've attached a picture of the plumbing if anyone is interested. Both at the back of the boiler and at the heat exchanger for the pool.

Chuck

 

[sdrobertson]

Nice Job - Let us know how the OWB keeps up with the pool. Thats alot of BTU's and I'm interested how it works.

 

[Jim K in PA]

Chuck,

Thanks for sharing. I am intending to set up a pool heater as a backup to my GARN. I will use a plate exchanger and the PH side opf the circuit will be filled with water/prop-glycol. I also intend to use that side of the exchanger for passive solar input as well.

What size/make HX did you use?

Good job getting yours done. Keep us posted on the performance.

 

[cwmcobra]

After a few days of use, I can report that the OWB keeps up quite well with the pool. It's a large pool with over 40,000 gallons of water. With the boiler up to temperature, it raises the pool temp about 5-7 degrees over 4-6 hours. We've had quite cool nights lately (mid-50s) and if I shut down the heater, the pool loses about 5 degrees overnight (no solar cover yet). The electronic thermostat is not hooked up yet (electrician is coming tomorrow) so I haven't run it continuously yet. The acid test was getting the water temp high enough for me to enter the pool. Being cold blooded, 85 is about minimum and it was up as high as 87 the other day.

Using a B-Line B-300 heat exchanger rated at 300,000 BTUs.

With the electronic control I'll have to experiment with the best temperature set point. The sensor in in the pool return line just after the chlorine generator, so that temp does not reflect the temp of the pool. I expect I'll set it at least at 90 to maintain high 80s in the pool.

So far, so good.

Chuck