Phoenix AZ inventors, Denis Ruzsa and Terry Maaske were sitting by the pool a few years ago trying to figure out the logistics of a solar-powered bottom cleaner when it hit them.
Why wait until the debris is on the pool's floor? The surface tension of water keeps leaves and dirt at the pool surface for several hours.
The problem is that pool owners don't typically manually skim the surface more than once a day.
By that time, the debris has sunk and begun decomposing.
Denis and Terry knew there had to be a way to automate the process without increasing the non-renewable energy consumption of a pool, so they invented a solar-powered robot to skim the pool and remove the debris in the same way that a robot can vacuum your home.
Cleaning your backyard pool requires a combination of surface skimming, bottom cleaning, general circulation and chemical application.
Whether you have a salt water or a chlorine pool, the amount of salt you need to generate, or chlorine you need to add, is in direct proportion to the amount of algae and bacteria in the water.
Decomposing debris produces algae and bacteria, so the sooner you remove it from contact with the water and exposure to sunlight, the less chemical intervention your pool requires.
The traditional approach to pool cleaning of waiting until the debris sinks and removing it from the bottom is inefficient and uses a lot of expensive energy.
Next to the air conditioner, the pool pump represents the second largest consumer of electricity for an average household, particularly in the Sunbelt where pools are open year-round.
In order to keep water clean and sanitized, the pool pump is supposed to run one hour for every 10 degrees of temperature.
In June that means 11 hours per day in places like Phoenix.
In the winter you can't shut down a Sunbelt pool.
Algae will still grow in water that isn't warm enough for swimming, so you still need to circulate and sanitize the water during the cool months.
Producing the electricity required to clean one average pool for a year consumes three tons of coal and produces six tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
This is the equivalent of an average SUV.
These figures are startling, especially when considering approximately 7 million homes in the United States have swimming pools.
Looking to address the difficult facts caused by our society's energy consumption, more and more individuals worldwide are taking a proactive approach to making their homes and backyards as eco-friendly as possible and the technologies to make this possible are becoming more accessible.
A prime example is the variable speed pool pump.
Many electrical utilities are offering rebates of up to a third of the cost of installation.
Combined with the proven energy-savings, these pumps and other alternative energy technologies are becoming a smart financial decision.
Moving towards an off-grid home has become more affordable for homeowners For those who want to heat their pools in order to extend their swim season, solar is definitely the way to go.
There are many ways to heat a pool with solar energy, but that is a subject for another day.
There is even a device on the market which will use solar energy to ionize and sanitize your pool and eliminates the need for chlorine or salt.
Traditional swimming pools consume many resources and even though they are therapeutic to body and soul, they are non-essential.
Take a look at what you can do to renewable energy to maintain your oasis.
Why wait until the debris is on the pool's floor? The surface tension of water keeps leaves and dirt at the pool surface for several hours.
The problem is that pool owners don't typically manually skim the surface more than once a day.
By that time, the debris has sunk and begun decomposing.
Denis and Terry knew there had to be a way to automate the process without increasing the non-renewable energy consumption of a pool, so they invented a solar-powered robot to skim the pool and remove the debris in the same way that a robot can vacuum your home.
Cleaning your backyard pool requires a combination of surface skimming, bottom cleaning, general circulation and chemical application.
Whether you have a salt water or a chlorine pool, the amount of salt you need to generate, or chlorine you need to add, is in direct proportion to the amount of algae and bacteria in the water.
Decomposing debris produces algae and bacteria, so the sooner you remove it from contact with the water and exposure to sunlight, the less chemical intervention your pool requires.
The traditional approach to pool cleaning of waiting until the debris sinks and removing it from the bottom is inefficient and uses a lot of expensive energy.
Next to the air conditioner, the pool pump represents the second largest consumer of electricity for an average household, particularly in the Sunbelt where pools are open year-round.
In order to keep water clean and sanitized, the pool pump is supposed to run one hour for every 10 degrees of temperature.
In June that means 11 hours per day in places like Phoenix.
In the winter you can't shut down a Sunbelt pool.
Algae will still grow in water that isn't warm enough for swimming, so you still need to circulate and sanitize the water during the cool months.
Producing the electricity required to clean one average pool for a year consumes three tons of coal and produces six tons of carbon dioxide emissions.
This is the equivalent of an average SUV.
These figures are startling, especially when considering approximately 7 million homes in the United States have swimming pools.
Looking to address the difficult facts caused by our society's energy consumption, more and more individuals worldwide are taking a proactive approach to making their homes and backyards as eco-friendly as possible and the technologies to make this possible are becoming more accessible.
A prime example is the variable speed pool pump.
Many electrical utilities are offering rebates of up to a third of the cost of installation.
Combined with the proven energy-savings, these pumps and other alternative energy technologies are becoming a smart financial decision.
Moving towards an off-grid home has become more affordable for homeowners For those who want to heat their pools in order to extend their swim season, solar is definitely the way to go.
There are many ways to heat a pool with solar energy, but that is a subject for another day.
There is even a device on the market which will use solar energy to ionize and sanitize your pool and eliminates the need for chlorine or salt.
Traditional swimming pools consume many resources and even though they are therapeutic to body and soul, they are non-essential.
Take a look at what you can do to renewable energy to maintain your oasis.
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