Update on the Wood Burning Pool Heater How Well Does it Work

I have had quite a few requests to provide some more detailed information on how well the wood burner works.  I would like to share some temperatures with you using a AGPtek Dual Two Channel Digital Thermometer.

I have been very happy with how well this pool heater has worked for us this year. We have had such a cold summer here in Michigan this year and this heater has been one of the only reasons we have been able to enjoy the pool. Normally, the solar heater and solar cover can keep the pool comfortable but this year it has just not been adequate. I have run the wood burning heater only when needed, maybe once or twice per week at the most. We have been able to easily keep the pool temperature above 75 degrees so far this year.

The numbers and methods here are just for rough estimation of how well the heater works, this is not meant for the science books, but should hold true with a heater of similar size and efficiency.

I measured about 69 gallons per hour with a 33 degree average warm up to the water. This was with an average sized fire going as the temperature here will fluctuate as you add wood and let it burn through. I have seen it as high as 45 degrees and as low as 15 degrees, so it just depends on how much and what material you are burning.

Calculations I used:  15,000 gallon pool divided by 69 gallons per hour (filled one gallon in 52 seconds) gave me 217 hours to heat all of the water 33 degrees. Or if you reduce, it comes down to about 27 hours for 4 degree rise for the entire pool. You can also just divide 33/217 to get a coefficient that can be used to create a formula. Y = .15x where Y is the degrees you will heat 15000 gallons of water and x is the number or hours you run the heater. So if we plug in 24 hours for x we get y=3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

Hopefully that makes sense to be used as a ROUGH estimate for calculating how much you can heat a similar sized pool.





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This post has been shared at:  The Homestead Barnhop, Simple Saturdays Blog Hop, The Backyard Farming Connection Hop, Natural Living Monday, Frugal Crafty Home Blog Hop

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Aquaponics System Design Filtered Water Vs Well Water

Is filtered water really a better choice for aquaponics? Doesnt my well water have all the nutrients and minerals that I am going to need for growth? These are some of the questions that I had when putting my system together as well and now that I have been running for almost a year I have learned a few tricks on the matter. I originally thought that the best source of minerals and nutrients to supplement the system would come from my well water. Over the course of the last year I have found this to not be entirely true and also, the well water causes more pH issues than it is worth. Now, dont get me wrong, I am not saying that you cannot use well water here. There is definitely a way to get around the pH issues and top off the system with your local well water. It is also important to note that not all well water is the same, it depends greatly on where you are in the world.


In my case the main issues was the presence of a large amount of carbonates in the well water. If you are unfamiliar with the concept of carbonates I have more info in another video here - http://youtu.be/NSXmwaPBQp8. What the carbonates were doing was not allowing the pH in the system to drop below 8. No matter how much acidic solution I added to the system the carbonates would continue to buffer the pH back up. I also had some issues with this same concept due to the river rock that I was using and have recently corrected that as well.


The bottom line here is that although you can use well water in your aquaponics system you might be better off installing even a simple inexpensive filter to at least get rid of some of the carbonates. You can still supplement nutrients if needed but in most cases this is not normally necessary. Using filtered water will allow you to have more control over the water quality and bring the pH into the perfect range for both your fish and your plants.

 

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