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from: Stephen Burgess
to: toddharrison@cox.net

date: Sun, Jul 5, 2009 at 7:40 AM
subject: My readneck pool heater

Hi Todd,

I would just like to say a big thank you for giving me the ideas and the drive to finish my pool
heater. My better half asked me to pop down to Asda for a little pool last summer for our grandson and
as I was looking at the pools I spotted a bargain! Bestway 12ft by 32 inches steel framed pool WAS over £100
now £50 so I obviously chose that one! When I got back, the better half was a bit upset that I chose a
bigger than expected pool especially when I erected it she really saw the size of it. I was a bit
taken back by the size as I didn`t know it would be as big as it was. After filling with water which
took approx 8 hrs I jumped in and QUICKLY jumped out because it was pretty chilly and far too cold for
the baby. I went onto google looking for a pool heater and saw that they heated the water by 1celcius
per 24hrs of operation so I had to look for a better solution and finally found your site. After
reading your articles I decided to go down the redneck pool heater route and bought 100ft of 22mm (3/4)
copper pipe and the elbows (which cost more than the copper pipe), foolishly I used wire wool to rub
the copper before soldering... ANYONE reading this please buy the proper equipment, an external rubbing
down tool is only about £20 from Tasker or B & Q and worth it`s weight in gold... no more blisters. I
tried to order a Cajun burner like on your site but they wouldn`t even answer my emails so I searched
and searched and finally found this flamaire BURNER SERVICES LTD I ordered the 24 jet
version the S14/3 with a miximum output of 150,000 using natural gas. All this happened in 2008 in June
2009 I finally finished my heater, I hadn`t been working on it for 12 months solid but had drifted from
it until this year when the sun came out again and better half started mentioning all the money I had
wasted on a pool and copper pipe that we couldn`t even use. As you can see in the pictures I built my
barbecue a few years ago; forgive the brickwork but it was the first and last time I had tried laying
bricks; I bought something called a Brickeys Mate from ebay that helps you lay bricks (it must be good
if I could build a barbecue from scratch using my own design!) Part of the design was an oven that has
and never was used so what a place to put a pool heater! It has vents in the top and a big gap under
the door for the air to get in so plenty of ventilation. I am using a 47k propane bottle and have
warmed the pool up 3 times and it still hasn`t ran out the gas cock is not even turn half way open
because I am losing to much heat through the top of the oven door so not worth having the gas set too
high.
Now for the figures :-
About 1,900 gallons of water in pool. 36 lengths of 22mm (3/4) x 2ft so 72ft of 22mm copper pipe.
AT 2pm water was coming into pump at 26.2C (79.16F) and out of pipe at 40.2C (104.36F).
At 5pm water was comming out of pipe at 50C (122F)
Pool raised from 26C (78F) to 34.5C (94.1F) in 3 hrs
My grandson who is almost 4 tried the pool before I`d finished the heater about a month ago at about
80F and he came out shivering, when I had heated the pool to 94F I couldn`t get him or his friends out
so thanks again for this simple but brilliant idea.
I have attached a few images just in case you want to put them onto your website, just use the ones you
want.

P.S My dad was a plumber for over 40 years so I had to call him to say I had NO leaks; not bad for a
first time effort.
Regards,

Stephen Burgess