One of our readers Andy H. Was inspired by our DIY solar heater to create his own DIY pond heater! Very very cool. Below are his pictures and notes on the project.
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This first attempt Is made from the back of a refridgerator, the part that once held the gas.
It was gravity feeding from a bucket raised up using just 4mm airline pipe from a fish tank. The temperature was increasing by 50C and producing steam and starting to self syphone.
This second one was made from plastic irrigation pipe so that it was, hopefully, fish friendly unlike metal. I used about 40 metres in a coil.
This was plywood backing.
On top of the plywood I placed some loft insulation followed by black mulch sheeting, this should be sprayed matt as it is slightly shiny or a sheet of anything sprayed matt black.
On top of this I placed a grill from and old BBQ sprayed matt black, I did this to attach cable ties too to hold the irrigation pipe in place.
I coiled the pipe round and round and tied in place as I went.
One end of the coil goes up to a pond filter system and is just gravity feeding at 3 litres a minute back to a lower level (NOT in the pond in case it gets too hot)
This is warming this flow by 2C but at night I slow the flow to a dribble to prevent a cooling effect which happens when the air temperature goes below the pond water temperature
A piece of glass was put on the frame and it is positioned at 45 degrees for when the sun rises but ideally it should face the mid-day sun.
Above is gravity feed intake
and the outlet as below…
I will keep and eye on this so as not to raise the pond too much or too fast as this is not good for the fish.
At the moment it is taking 2000 gallons from 9c to 10c but the pond is not insulated so it is losing heat at night back to about 8.8c but at least this solar water heater is bring the 2000 gallons back up a bit even if it is cloudy.
As the sun gets stronger and the air temp comes up and stops dropping so much at night then the pond will gain temp.
Slowly does it but if it gets to about 23c then I will hold it there by covering the panel with a cloth or foil to reflect the heat away(Or half of it)
Obviously the bigger the pipe and the more of it the better it will work, the flow speed will regulate the temperature raise.
Even a very small pump and a few hundred feet of pipe spread over your garden in the sun would work as for the amount of watts a small pump uses, the same wattage on a water heater would have very very little effect compared to the power of the sun so you could assist the temp in a swimming pool maybe by perhaps T-ing off a small part of the flow from the main pool pump so utilising the same pump at no extra electricity cost!
This one for my pond is being used in the south of england so still waiting for the warmer sun to see how effective it can be but if using on a pond, just be carefull and dont leave un-monitored until you have an idea of how it is working.
As I am slowing the flow to a dribble at night to stop cooling, then the temp will be much more when the sun comes out, this morning the pond was at 8.8c and the water dribbling out was reading 37c, I opened the flow back to 3 litres /min and it went back to a 2.2c raise of the pond.
Happy playing and building and saving money!!!
Andy H
Hey, I’d like to hear an update on how the pond heater has held out.
Can you offer any more details, now that it’s months later?
Im thinking of putting a greenhouse roof over the top of my pond, do you think this idea would work in the same way but instead directly warm the pond up, or could it get too hot?
I ate the helpful advice. I recently installed a heater myself. I bought the parts from http://thepondwarehouse.com/ and with the help of a few friends was able to install it no problem!