IntexEco-Friendly Solar Heating Mat for Swimming Pools #28685

Works fantastic, when the sun is out, heats quickly, with enough bags and does a super job. Just take up space so it's good if you have a place to pack them out

These things are surprisingly effective. I measure our pool temperature daily with a cooking thermometer (a Thermapen). We have the 3x2m Intex pool and the 1000gph pump. Six of these pads in series on a hot day will easily give a 5C boost to the pool temperature. In a recent bout of good weather, at around 25C, we were sat in the pool hovering around 30C. On a hot day if you wait for the pads to heat up, the inlet water will be almost too hot to touch (if you've tried a solar shower in a hot country, you'll know what I mean).I've found that the most effective way to set the vale is to direct water down both the coils and the bypass at the same time. The problem is if your pump is too powerful, it will buckle the pad and kinks will form near the inlet stopping water from going into the coiled section. With six pads in this configuration, there was no flow. Changing to half/half bypass/coil we have a good flow rate, and the entire pad is cool to the touch indicating that the water is getting everywhere.There are two downsides. Firstly, they're relatively large, they will kill your grass and they're awkward to move so that you get sunlight underneath. Secondly, the plastic clamps are garbage. They don't do up tightly enough to get a good seal - half our pads were ok, but half of them are dripping slowly. You can try double clamping, but really you should probably get some proper jubilee clamps instead.Setup is easy - if you have a pump, you already have enough tubing. Each additional pad comes with enough extra piping to combine it into the loop. Make sure you check the prices. These are absolutely not worth £50 each. We bought ours for around £15 each.

Does what is says, warms the water up fairly well, suggest maybe getting two though for bigger pools

I have an intex 2x3 4000L pool with an Intex Krystal 1000 GPH Pump Flow, which is quite powerful for the pool size and delivers a strong stream - I've always been vey happy with it. Strong enough to easily push your hand away.I set up 2 of these solar mats today and I could not believe the impact they had on the filtering system. The flow entering the pool is ridiculously weak, a trickle not strong enough to move a tennis ball floating next to it.All set up is correct, no leaks, new filter installed; when the valve mats are closed, and hence bypassing the circuit, the stream gets stronger but also noticeably weaker than without them. One mat alone also significantly reduced the stream. I don't quite understand how others have not reported a similar problem?The mat circuit puts so much resistance to the water flow that the pump is not strong enough to move the water through - hence the pool will never get warm...Very disappointed, I just wanted to get a couple more degrees on sunny days, but without getting an even more powerful pump (risk of ripping the mat included) is not going to happen.I think I wasted my money.

These work really well once setup correctly, I run mine off a pond pump independent of the pool filter and have have put them on my shed roof. Attached image is from 10am before the sun is direct on the mats, pool temperature was 15c so the water is being heated by a good few degrees. By 5pm pool is always 20c+ (and sometimes more). Fiddly to setup correctly with hoses and connectors it they definitely work to take the chill out of the pool. For reference my pool is a 1.5x2.2 Intex rectangular pool. For larger pools you would want more mats.

Not the best product. Poor instruction. Don't think it would do much to heat the water. Needs to hold more water to make any difference

These are a budget way to get some heat into your above ground pool. Simple and easy to set up and quiet functional. It dosent get the pool hot but does a good job taking the chill off it.

They work but depending on your size of pool you may require multiple we needed 6 to produce a decent increase in water temperature for a 8ft by 15 pool. First issue is the restrict the pump flow so the best way to negate strain on the pump was to buy 2 pond 32mm t pieces and run it in a parallel of 3. Then the water flow isn't too constricted we use a 60w pool water filter pump which when run as a line would force the mats to deform and construct the flow even further even with the valve set to fully open.