[Cube]

[quote=Fearful][quote=sreeb]I don’t think it is just efficiency. The black pigment they use (carbon black?) is the cheapest/best one for protecting the polypropylene from UV light. Your system will not only be bigger, the individual components will cost more and fail sooner.[/quote]
Bollocks – iron oxide is also a very good photostabilizer. Not quite as good as carbon black, but close. Nice rusty red brown.

Besides, there are plenty of non black plastics that hold up fine in the sun. We aren’t even talking about water that’s under pressure, after all. And it’s kept cool by the circulating water.

Furthermore, a coat of latex paint is prescribed to protect ABS or PVC that emerges in roof vents. Just paint the stupid things.

The material cost of the polypropylene is small relative to the total installed cost. It could be coated, painted, impregnated, and the total installed cost would not change by much.

I think the reason it has not been attempted is because the market is small enough in the first place – people mostly only really care about swimming where it is hot enough during the day that the pool is nice to have somewhat cool anyway – that fiddling with the colors wouldn’t grow the market much. If given a choice, most consumers would like to have roof colored solar panels, but the availability of roof colored panels would not make many more people buy them.

That and the fact that people who make or buy them are thinking in terms of getting as much free energy from the sun as possible, aesthetics be damned.[/quote]

Not entirely accurate on the cooling and pressure arguments.

The system is only being cooled when water is flowing through it, and there are two reasons for water to not be flowing through it. One is when the pump system is off (lower duty-cycle, off-season, etc.). The other is when the solar system is isolated from the pool for being too hot. If the solar would take the pool to higher than the thermostat setting, then it is removed from the loop (allowing the water and pipes up there to get significantly hotter than when the system is running).

With respect to pressure, the system requires positive pressure to force water through the small pipes on the roof at the desired rate. I’ve seen some pretty spectacular failure on roofs where the system finally springs a small leak, and pressure forces the pool water out fairly forcefully (up into the air, onto the neighbors roof, etc.).

[Cube]

[quote=Fearful][quote=sreeb]I don’t think it is just efficiency. The black pigment they use (carbon black?) is the cheapest/best one for protecting the polypropylene from UV light. Your system will not only be bigger, the individual components will cost more and fail sooner.[/quote]
Bollocks – iron oxide is also a very good photostabilizer. Not quite as good as carbon black, but close. Nice rusty red brown.

Besides, there are plenty of non black plastics that hold up fine in the sun. We aren’t even talking about water that’s under pressure, after all. And it’s kept cool by the circulating water.

Furthermore, a coat of latex paint is prescribed to protect ABS or PVC that emerges in roof vents. Just paint the stupid things.

The material cost of the polypropylene is small relative to the total installed cost. It could be coated, painted, impregnated, and the total installed cost would not change by much.

I think the reason it has not been attempted is because the market is small enough in the first place – people mostly only really care about swimming where it is hot enough during the day that the pool is nice to have somewhat cool anyway – that fiddling with the colors wouldn’t grow the market much. If given a choice, most consumers would like to have roof colored solar panels, but the availability of roof colored panels would not make many more people buy them.

That and the fact that people who make or buy them are thinking in terms of getting as much free energy from the sun as possible, aesthetics be damned.[/quote]

Not entirely accurate on the cooling and pressure arguments.

The system is only being cooled when water is flowing through it, and there are two reasons for water to not be flowing through it. One is when the pump system is off (lower duty-cycle, off-season, etc.). The other is when the solar system is isolated from the pool for being too hot. If the solar would take the pool to higher than the thermostat setting, then it is removed from the loop (allowing the water and pipes up there to get significantly hotter than when the system is running).

With respect to pressure, the system requires positive pressure to force water through the small pipes on the roof at the desired rate. I’ve seen some pretty spectacular failure on roofs where the system finally springs a small leak, and pressure forces the pool water out fairly forcefully (up into the air, onto the neighbors roof, etc.).

[Cube]

We’ve used AJ-USA (http://www.ajusa.com/, Mira Mesa at Flanders) twice. Once around 2000 (for my wife’s car before we were married), and once recently.

With regard to the recent work (front bumper and quarter panel and door), I was very happy with their workmanship. Everything looked good as new, color blended properly (I can’t even distinguish the repainted parts from original parts), they provided me a vial of touch up paint for other parts of the car should I need it. They did give me a more expensive quote than Caliber Collision, but I had more confidence in their quote (AJ wanted to remove the quarter panel to repair the large dent and paint it, whereas Caliber gave me a quote for pulling the dent and painting it while still on the car).

I was paying out of pocket, but I went with AJ-USA despite the higher price since I had more confidence in their quote and their work.

I will say, though, that I don’t think much of after-market paint jobs. AJ’s work is warranted (by the paint system manufacturer, I believe) for 10 years. The work done in 2000 has had the clear coat bubbling and peeling in the last year or so. To be fair, we did not take very good cosmetic care of that car over the years (washing / waxing), so I don’t know how much to attribute the product life expectancy / warranty correlation vs. poor upkeep on our part.

That being said, based on our recent repair with them, I am certainly inclined to use them again, and I’ll try to take better care of the recent repair we had done with them.

[Cube]

We’ve used AJ-USA (http://www.ajusa.com/, Mira Mesa at Flanders) twice. Once around 2000 (for my wife’s car before we were married), and once recently.

With regard to the recent work (front bumper and quarter panel and door), I was very happy with their workmanship. Everything looked good as new, color blended properly (I can’t even distinguish the repainted parts from original parts), they provided me a vial of touch up paint for other parts of the car should I need it. They did give me a more expensive quote than Caliber Collision, but I had more confidence in their quote (AJ wanted to remove the quarter panel to repair the large dent and paint it, whereas Caliber gave me a quote for pulling the dent and painting it while still on the car).

I was paying out of pocket, but I went with AJ-USA despite the higher price since I had more confidence in their quote and their work.

I will say, though, that I don’t think much of after-market paint jobs. AJ’s work is warranted (by the paint system manufacturer, I believe) for 10 years. The work done in 2000 has had the clear coat bubbling and peeling in the last year or so. To be fair, we did not take very good cosmetic care of that car over the years (washing / waxing), so I don’t know how much to attribute the product life expectancy / warranty correlation vs. poor upkeep on our part.

That being said, based on our recent repair with them, I am certainly inclined to use them again, and I’ll try to take better care of the recent repair we had done with them.

[Cube]

We’ve used AJ-USA (http://www.ajusa.com/, Mira Mesa at Flanders) twice. Once around 2000 (for my wife’s car before we were married), and once recently.

With regard to the recent work (front bumper and quarter panel and door), I was very happy with their workmanship. Everything looked good as new, color blended properly (I can’t even distinguish the repainted parts from original parts), they provided me a vial of touch up paint for other parts of the car should I need it. They did give me a more expensive quote than Caliber Collision, but I had more confidence in their quote (AJ wanted to remove the quarter panel to repair the large dent and paint it, whereas Caliber gave me a quote for pulling the dent and painting it while still on the car).

I was paying out of pocket, but I went with AJ-USA despite the higher price since I had more confidence in their quote and their work.

I will say, though, that I don’t think much of after-market paint jobs. AJ’s work is warranted (by the paint system manufacturer, I believe) for 10 years. The work done in 2000 has had the clear coat bubbling and peeling in the last year or so. To be fair, we did not take very good cosmetic care of that car over the years (washing / waxing), so I don’t know how much to attribute the product life expectancy / warranty correlation vs. poor upkeep on our part.

That being said, based on our recent repair with them, I am certainly inclined to use them again, and I’ll try to take better care of the recent repair we had done with them.

[Cube]

We’ve used AJ-USA (http://www.ajusa.com/, Mira Mesa at Flanders) twice. Once around 2000 (for my wife’s car before we were married), and once recently.

With regard to the recent work (front bumper and quarter panel and door), I was very happy with their workmanship. Everything looked good as new, color blended properly (I can’t even distinguish the repainted parts from original parts), they provided me a vial of touch up paint for other parts of the car should I need it. They did give me a more expensive quote than Caliber Collision, but I had more confidence in their quote (AJ wanted to remove the quarter panel to repair the large dent and paint it, whereas Caliber gave me a quote for pulling the dent and painting it while still on the car).

I was paying out of pocket, but I went with AJ-USA despite the higher price since I had more confidence in their quote and their work.

I will say, though, that I don’t think much of after-market paint jobs. AJ’s work is warranted (by the paint system manufacturer, I believe) for 10 years. The work done in 2000 has had the clear coat bubbling and peeling in the last year or so. To be fair, we did not take very good cosmetic care of that car over the years (washing / waxing), so I don’t know how much to attribute the product life expectancy / warranty correlation vs. poor upkeep on our part.

That being said, based on our recent repair with them, I am certainly inclined to use them again, and I’ll try to take better care of the recent repair we had done with them.

[Cube]

We’ve used AJ-USA (http://www.ajusa.com/, Mira Mesa at Flanders) twice. Once around 2000 (for my wife’s car before we were married), and once recently.

With regard to the recent work (front bumper and quarter panel and door), I was very happy with their workmanship. Everything looked good as new, color blended properly (I can’t even distinguish the repainted parts from original parts), they provided me a vial of touch up paint for other parts of the car should I need it. They did give me a more expensive quote than Caliber Collision, but I had more confidence in their quote (AJ wanted to remove the quarter panel to repair the large dent and paint it, whereas Caliber gave me a quote for pulling the dent and painting it while still on the car).

I was paying out of pocket, but I went with AJ-USA despite the higher price since I had more confidence in their quote and their work.

I will say, though, that I don’t think much of after-market paint jobs. AJ’s work is warranted (by the paint system manufacturer, I believe) for 10 years. The work done in 2000 has had the clear coat bubbling and peeling in the last year or so. To be fair, we did not take very good cosmetic care of that car over the years (washing / waxing), so I don’t know how much to attribute the product life expectancy / warranty correlation vs. poor upkeep on our part.

That being said, based on our recent repair with them, I am certainly inclined to use them again, and I’ll try to take better care of the recent repair we had done with them.

[Cube]

[quote=Scarlett]Meaning what, exactly?[/quote]

Well, a boat is a hole in the water into which you pour money, so I suppose a pool is a similar hole that just happens to be in the ground.

[Cube]

[quote=Scarlett]Meaning what, exactly?[/quote]

Well, a boat is a hole in the water into which you pour money, so I suppose a pool is a similar hole that just happens to be in the ground.

[Cube]

[quote=Scarlett]Meaning what, exactly?[/quote]

Well, a boat is a hole in the water into which you pour money, so I suppose a pool is a similar hole that just happens to be in the ground.

[Cube]

[quote=Scarlett]Meaning what, exactly?[/quote]

Well, a boat is a hole in the water into which you pour money, so I suppose a pool is a similar hole that just happens to be in the ground.

[Cube]

[quote=Scarlett]Meaning what, exactly?[/quote]

Well, a boat is a hole in the water into which you pour money, so I suppose a pool is a similar hole that just happens to be in the ground.

[Cube]

In terms of absurd things, I had a friend in college who used to snort packets of sweetener and black pepper. I suppose those will be the next to go…

I never thought of this forum as particularly far left. I’ve been lurking since 2005. In the early days, I’d say that the demographic was reasonably mixed, perhaps with the vocal right being slightly more prolific than the vocal left (if not out-numbering them in users).

In any case, I abhor the nanny state. I heard a serious discussion proposing the shutdown of all pseudoephedrine plants in the world and a complete ban on the substance. I’ve given the PE (Placebo Edition) a try, and I’m fairly sure it doesn’t work as well, at least not for me (haven’t done a blind study yet though).

[Cube]

In terms of absurd things, I had a friend in college who used to snort packets of sweetener and black pepper. I suppose those will be the next to go…

I never thought of this forum as particularly far left. I’ve been lurking since 2005. In the early days, I’d say that the demographic was reasonably mixed, perhaps with the vocal right being slightly more prolific than the vocal left (if not out-numbering them in users).

In any case, I abhor the nanny state. I heard a serious discussion proposing the shutdown of all pseudoephedrine plants in the world and a complete ban on the substance. I’ve given the PE (Placebo Edition) a try, and I’m fairly sure it doesn’t work as well, at least not for me (haven’t done a blind study yet though).

[Cube]

In terms of absurd things, I had a friend in college who used to snort packets of sweetener and black pepper. I suppose those will be the next to go…

I never thought of this forum as particularly far left. I’ve been lurking since 2005. In the early days, I’d say that the demographic was reasonably mixed, perhaps with the vocal right being slightly more prolific than the vocal left (if not out-numbering them in users).

In any case, I abhor the nanny state. I heard a serious discussion proposing the shutdown of all pseudoephedrine plants in the world and a complete ban on the substance. I’ve given the PE (Placebo Edition) a try, and I’m fairly sure it doesn’t work as well, at least not for me (haven’t done a blind study yet though).

[Author]

Posts