UPDATED REVIEW 6/17/2025: I have upgraded my original review from 4 to 5 stars. Now that we are looking ahead to a full season of using this product, we are so glad we added this item to our pool. Eleven days ago we had to replace our above ground pool liner and have a water delivery to refill it. The water thermometer reading was 63 degrees. In the 10 days since then, we've had overcast days, partly sunny days and cool nighttime temps (mid-50s). We set up the solar collector and move it where it could receive maximum sun on it. Today the water temp was 81 degrees and it was wonderful! First time my husband was in the pool this early in the season....seriously! He does not swim when water temps are in the 70's. All the improvements listed below are actually working as we had dreamed. Yes, we keep the solar cover on each and every night to minimize evaporation and keep the warm temps. This really will extend our (Midwest) swim season and regulate temps during the heavy summer swim months. ORIGINAL REVIEW: FIRST OF ALL, I want to thank all of the reviewers who posted their positive and (many) negative experiences. We seriously took their input into account and adjusted our installation and expectations accordingly. Ultimately, we chose to add 1 of these solar panels to assist in improving the temp of our 18' dia. above-ground pool. We're not looking to consistently hit 84 degrees in our Midwest location. We want to eke out a few more days of swimming in early/late season and keep consistent comfortable swimming temps. We always keep a bubble solar cover on the pool when not in use. The panel itself was well packed and is a solid piece of equipment. We think this panel system has a lot of merit and that is why we chose to undertake this "grand experiment". We hope you find some of our suggestions helpful. WHAT WE CONSIDERED FOR OUR LOCATION: --Slower water movement through the solar panel should result in warmer temps coming from the output back into the pool...and it does appear to be working in theory. --We wanted to eliminate usage of our pool pump which would move too much water through the panel at a high speed. Also adding to higher utility bills. -We wanted to maximize our sun exposure on the panel due to tree cover and our pool's orientation, which led us to a moveable panel/utility pump installation. IMPROVEMENT #1: To alleviate the failed/broken legs issue many reported, we securely bungy-corded the panel to a sturdy (wheeled) hand truck which can be moved short distances to maximize the sun exposure. (The panel's legs are folded back and not used at all.) We then have the hand cart handle secured to our railing (bungy cord) which keeps the unit on an upright angle to take up less space on the pool decking while having maximum sun on it. IMPROVEMENT #2: We acquired a separate 1/4 HP utility pump (approx. 1200 GPH at 5' height) which sits at the bottom of the pool. In the process of plumbing the intake and output connections (lots of trial and error to step down to the panel's fitting) we also included a SHUT-OFF valve where we can control the speed/amount of water going into the panel. This pump is on an outdoor timer and currently runs 6 hrs. during the day with maximum sun exposure. RESULTS AFTER 1 WEEK: --I have been tracking pool temps at start and end times of the pump/solar panel and I see about a 1 degree rise each day (if lots of sunshine). It is July, so it is expected to start the pump day at somewhere near 76 degrees and end around 80 degrees. The real proof is when we open the pool at the end of May when there are more temp fluctuations. I will update this review next spring. --What does surprise me is that the water temp stays very consistent (77-80 degrees) even after inches of rainfall, cooler overnight temps and overcast days with little to no sunshine. ADDITIONAL NOTES: --The panel came with 2 bags of mostly useless, black plastic plumbing connectors. Depending on how you hook the panel(s) up, you may use some, or none of these pieces. --The 2 3 ft. long hoses are a joke. Trash them and get 1 longer length of hose to fit your installation/location. --The utility pump (water INTAKE to panel) we purchased is connected to a hose (13FT x 1" Suction Hose Kit) that is found on Amazon. This gives us plenty of flexibility to move the panel/cart short distances to access full sun. --We UNPLUG THE PUMP from the electrical timer when someone is in the pool. --Once we made a couple of trips to the hardware store to finalize our necessary connections, everything went together well and NO leaks were experienced.

I have 2 directly in the sun for 8 -9 hours and I get very little heat. my pool is an in-ground about 10k gal. I have a varible pumb, thank goodness, and I run between it between 700-900 but might turn it down even more. My water comes out around 1 degree warmer. I have a solar cover as well. I would recommend saving your money and going with the flat panels that you can put on your roof or ground. I had 3 that I used for my pool in PA and it worked great. they have smaller tubes vs. the larger tunes on this one. assembly wasn't bad, ran I to the same issue as everyone about leaks. I went and purchase more clamps and I have 2 clamps per hose. seems to be working. I have a very small drip coming from one but that's ok to me, I'll mess with it another time. I did have to purchase a longer hose as well. so, again, my recommendation is don't buy, go with something else. Also, I live in Palm Bay FL so yes, I get plenty of sun.

I bought this solar panel for a above ground 15 ft round pool. This thing has been great! After 1 day it was keeping the pool at 82 and by day 4 the pool was up to near 90! I will say that if you want to keep that heat though, you must have a solar cover so that your heat doesn't dissipate to badly at night. The last two days, we have had very little sun and cooler temps in low 70's and the pool was still sitting between 80 and 82. Our pump is also less than 1hp so the water flows through it at a pretty decent rate and still warms up nicely as it goes through the coils. Some things to note though The hoses are not long at all, so if the panel needs to be placed somewhere away from the pump in order to get full sun, you will need to buy longer hoses. We have an Intex sand filter and had to get creative at the local big box home improvement store to make adapters to accommodate longer hoses. No stars dinged for that though, because if you just used everything that came with it and you are able to put it right near the pump, you wouldn't have to do anything special. Mentioning this though because many people will be at the mercy of where the sun shines and you will most likely need longer hoses. Did I mention the sun.. because you will need full sun for the better part of the day if you want to see those pool temps rise. If your panel is only getting sun for a couple hours, your going to have a bad time. Our panel gets a full 8 hours of sun where it sits and our pump runs 6 to 8 hours during that time. Partly sunny days keep it at 82 to 86, full sun days get's our pool near 90, and cloudy days it can drop to 80 if overcast conditions last a few days. If you have a bigger pool, invest in more than one of these. One of these heats our 15 ft pool nicely, but I would think that if you have something bigger than a 18 ft or even a oval pool, 2 would be your best option. The longer the water stays in the coils, the more it will heat your pool. I know I mentioned it up top but it is worth mentioning again, you need to have a solar cover. A solar cover is not just for helping heat your pool, it's best use is for keeping that hard earned solar heated warmth in at night. You can easily lose like 5 degrees of heat at night without a cover. If you have this panel and it never seems to get warm or stay warm and you don't have a good solar cover, that's not the panel's fault... that is your fault for letting all that wonderful heat escape into the night. Overall, this panel delivers as long as you do your part to make sure it can do it's job.

Pretty good wish it had smaller pump recommendations I have the fastes pump it can take and if my pump was slower it would work awesome but works pretty good if u get the right size solar cover to hold heat in at night then u will be happier with this product I do recommend but the price is high for such cheaply made product . I have had to replace cause a soccer ball cracked it then replace again when tipped over in a wind storm and the output and inputs cracked off . I suggest having no kids if you have this lol

I purchased two of these for my new pool. I've had them for about three weeks and so far no issues. The 4-star rating is for the insanely cheap and poorly designed tubing and connectors and the poorly designed legs that they have. Because of the cheap legs, I built a support structure to take the weight off the legs (not shown in photos). I did read many of the reviews and hesitated to purchase these because of the problems with leaking, etc. When I first took these out of the boxes and looked at the components, I almost sent them back unused. Then after considering the cost of return shipping, I decided to keep them. I hooked them up, using great care and every plumbing trick I know to make them work.... and they do... without leaks. I used a very large amount of silicone to make each connection (I connected two together). As you can see in the photo, I allowed the silicone to ooze out of the connection and seal itself around the connection. I also used Teflon tape. I let the silicone dry for 36 hours before pumping water through the hoses and to my surprise... no leaks. Because of some unusually hot weather where I live, I have not needed to use these everyday. When you touch them, they feel hot from the sun and I'm sure the water running through them warms my pool when needed, but again, I have not noticed the difference too much with the hot weather. I'm sure when August rolls around and we start having 50 degree nights, I will use them everyday and will notice they do work as intended. For now, after reading all the lousy reviews, I am just happy with no leaks. Despite the poor construction of the components, I believe you can make these work if you take the time and do it right. Could they be better? Absolutely.

So far these are great I installed two of them and have been getting about +3 degrees each day. I have an in ground pool 11,500 gal so for me I had to get a bypass kit. In fact I purchased 2 of them. I got the older one from Game with the valve and the new one to. I do not like the new one that Game has listed because you can't by pass the heater with the new kit. This is important for non-sunny days or running your filter at night as the panels will cool your pool off if run at night. Proper bypass is important because if the water goes through to fast it wont heat. I have a 1.5 Haywood HP Super Pump. I also like the old kit as it gives you a pressure gauge and shows the correct pressure going to the heaters in green. DIY people with a little skill will have no problems setting this up. One thing to note is if you want to do a hard line installation the parts are ABS plastic not PVC so make sure you have a cement that can weld PVC to ABS. I went with a rubber collar instead for now. I do have a few drips out of the ABS bypass valve even with Teflon tape so I may weld those parts in at some point in the future but so far I am very happy with these. I had a roof mounted system on another home a few years ago and it worked great, but it got holes in it from a neighbor shooting fireworks in their yard and it really didn't look nice having it on the roof and it seemed to get holes in it every year. That companies only fix was to cut a tube and put in a metal screw to stop the flow into the part with the hole, before long I had a bunch of screws in my panels so I like that these are on the ground have the clear plastic to help trap heat in ,but also protect the tubes from fireworks.

The product occasionally warms the pool by 3-5°, but getting it to work feels like pulling teeth. One day I found the unit collapsed in my backyard-the legs had completely broken off. The build quality is clearly flimsy and unreliable. To make matters worse, I received a $50 customs charge from FedEx, even though I ordered through Amazon Prime. Apparently it shipped from Canada, but that wasn't disclosed during checkout. I was led to believe shipping was covered, and there was no mention of international fees. Overall, the heater is cheaply made, not very effective, and surprisingly expensive. Would not recommend.

Purchased 2 of these to work in a daisy chain - needs a diverter to split off some filter output flow to the heaters Geography: Midwest Pool size: 13' diameter, 28" deep, above ground, Jacuzzi 1 HP sand filter, blue solar cover Summary - if you have a very shallow pool, use a solar pool cover, and do not have more than 1000 gallons, this will marginally help. For the same cost - building your own (see youtube) will yield far more BTUs than daisy chaining multiple units to generate meaningful BTUs and volume. In all fairness, the pool was in a 'summer' sunny location. In September, the night air temp would drop to 50-60's and the Sun's angle very quickly eroded 8+ hours of direct sun to 2-3 hours of low angle sun. This rendered the marginal volume of warmer than air water not being able to keep the pool warm enough to use. So the SolarPros were removed. Evolution: Use a solar cover when the pool was not in use conserved the heat. I ended up adding a 500' black irrigation hose loop in a more sunny location and kept the pool at 76-80 in all of September - resulting in 4 weeks longer use. The poor customer service to the units leak issue is why I do not recommend this product. No amount of hose clamps, plumbing fitting tape, or sealant, or gasket seal would solve the leaks (constant dripping even at low pressure at the hose attachment points) Positive - with a slow flow - will generate a (slow/small) volume of warm (80) to hot water (125) depending on sun angle and clear skies Cons - No effective customer service. The fittings leak on both units, nothing applied to the fittings stopped the leaks. Customer service is non-existent From a BTU perspective it is akin to dropping ice cubes into a pool in Arizona that is in 125 degree temp to cool down. If you slow the volume of flow down to a gallon a minute, you get a very nice rise in water temp - slow it even further, I got 125 degrees coming out (that is hot) - but that is at a trickle really does not dent the water temp. Setting the flow to be at about 10 degree rise resulted in a larger volume of warmer water mixing in the pool. Experiments: 1) solar cover on 24 hours in 85, filter running during the day only 2) solar cover on 24 hours in 85, filter running during the day only + the solar curve Result The 2 Solar curve added 2 degrees in July Sun per day with about 9 hours of exposure to Sun (overhead effectively 4 hours) and not turning the units to be in optimal Sun facing. Do not run filter at night through the curves (they are then chilling the water - think radiator/heat sink)