Guide To Pool Heating

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help explain the concepts described and to provide you with a solid, visual understanding of the

valve itself and how it is plumbed into the support system of the pool.

Be patient!You may have to read carefully to gain a complete understanding of flow

reversal. It took the Patent and Trademark Office in Washington, D.C. nearly eight years before

they granted a patent. Why? Because examiners at the Patent Office could not grasp the fact that

water can flow through the flowreversal™ valve in two separate circuit paths at the same time.

Traditional Plumbing and Your Swimming Pool.

To understand flowreversal, you must first understand that literally millions of swimming

pools have been built with a certain “traditional” plumbing configuration. This traditional

plumbing means that a “main drain”is physically located on the bottom of the pool. The pool

support pump sucks the pool water from this drain out of the pool where it is then filtered and

returned to the pool through a set of “return lines”which are located at the top of the pool -- just

a few inches just below the water line.

When a pool heater is used, it is connected to the pool support system just after the filter.

The heated water is then returned through the return lines to the top of the pool. The cooler water

at the bottom of the pool is pumped through the filter, heated and returned through the return lines

to the top level of the pool.

There is, however, a problem with this design because heat rises.Traditional plumbing

puts the heated water right on the top of the pool, exactly where 60-70% of the heat loss occurs.

Heating the pool with this traditional approach is the same as applying heat to the topof a cooking

pan when you’re trying to boil water. It doesn’t make sense. Heat should be applied to the bottom

to have a more uniform temperature throughout the pool.

Why has pool construction been done this way? And why -- for the most part -- does the

practice continue? The answer: Tradition!It’s always been done that way! It all originates back

to the original pool designer and his design concepts.