However without direct sunlight you will not get the maximum heating capacity of the solar panels.
Do solar pool heaters work on cloudy days.
Although they work better on sunny versus cloudy days solar panels don t work best in particularly hot.
But there s an interesting twist.
If you cover your pool at night and on days when it s too cold to swim your pool will retain heat better and stay warmer.
Expect them to produce 10 25 of their normal power output depending on how thick the cloud cover is.
During the experiment the weather did turn cool and we had rain.
Since solar heaters rely exclusively upon the sun their heating rate fluctuates greatly.
There s no apparent shortcut the larger bulkier solar pool.
You will still get some heat from the solar panels just like you can still get a sun burn on cloudy days.
Solar covers do really work.
In sunny weather the solar heated pool reached 29c in the middle of the day whilst the non heated pool was 24c.
On average solar heated pools will be 8 12 degrees warmer than an unheated pool in the same area.
Yes solar panels do work on cloudy days but not as effectively as they would on a sunny day.
On a cloudy day with spots of sunshine you might only heat your pool 2 or 3 degrees after running the pump all day.
This disadvantage is partly be offset in a couple of ways firstly a pool cover can stop the pool from getting too cool over cloudy windy and or rainy days when combined with a solar pool heating system.
It works best on bright sunny days but even on overcast days where the sun rarely makes an appearance it can still pull some heat out of the air on a warm day.
If the weather s cold heat transfer becomes even less effective.
If it s raining however or cloudy with low temperatures running the solar pool heater is best avoided as it can actually cool the pool.
Both to retain heat and reduce humidity and when used on outdoor pools they also add heat to the pool liquid solar does not add heat.
Solar heated pools still loose heat at night and on cloudy days when no electricity is being produced by the system.
There seems to be a bit of a trade off in convenience for effectiveness within this product category.
And that s hardly enough for a comfortable swim.