A couple of years ago when I bought my Intex outdoor pool for the garden, I also bought the solar ‘bubblewrap’ cover to go on top of it. This cover was meant to protect the pool from debris but it also said that it would heat the water by solar power. I had the pool up when I first bought it but didn’t put it up last year so this year I thought I would test it out properly as I have had the pool up for around 6 weeks now. So the question is, does the bubble wrap pool cover actually heat up the water like it claims?
The cover that I bought was pretty much the perfect size for my Intex pool. I’ve got a piece of pipe that I can roll it on to to take it off the pool and put it back on.
Today was a pretty hot day (up to 27 degrees in the afternoon) so I thought this was a day to get the best results. Interestingly it had been quite cloudy in the morning so it had not really heated the pool up at all when I first got in at 11.30am. The pool was at around 27 degrees at the bottom and slightly warmer at the top, getting close to 29 degrees.
I then put the cover on the pool at around 12.15pm when it was fully sunny. I took the cover off and went back in the pool at 2.30pm. At this point I took some more measurements just before I got in.
Whenever it is sunny, you can feel that the top of the water is much warmer than the bottom without the the need for checking temperatures. However, today I checked, with the pool cover having been on for 2 hours and the pool in full sun, and the temperature at the top of the water was 34.2 degrees, quite a significant increase on the 29 degrees from earlier.
I also checked the water temperature further down and that was at 29 degrees:
So you can see that the temperature of the water has significantly increased with the solar pool cover on. When I got into the pool and swam and hence mixed the water up a bit, the water was at 29.4 even at the bottom of the pool, quite impressive as it had been at 27 degrees when I had been swimming earlier.
When the top of the water has been heated by the pool cover I will usually turn the filter on for a minute to mix up the water. I feel that this then gets colder water on to the top to be heated again by the solar pool cover.
So overall I am quite happy with this heating effect of the ‘bubble wrap’. Obviously it is only going to work well when the sun is out and I started off with the pool last week being at 32 degrees after filling it half way from the hot tap. The cover seems to keep a lot of the heat in and also increases the temperature in hot weather, meaning it is much more pleasant to swim in.
and this is the pool cover that I bought.
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