Customer Reviews

Solar Sun Rings - Solar Pool Heater

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(17)

 

 

I bought 20 of these rings last year ( paid just over $500). The rings have worked great for us. Here are the positive points:

1 - Safer for the family should someone fall in the pool while a solar cover is on ( as the rings will separate and not engulf you).

2 - One person can put the rings on and off. This was a major plus as I am often home alone and wouldn't be able to remove a traditional solar blanket from the pool alone.

3 - The rings did help increase the water temperature and help maintain temperatures over night ( This last weekend (May) it raised my water to 78 here in NY and it was still 78 the next morning...last year the water reached 92!)

4 - The rings are compatible with automatic pool cleaners.

I have never had a problem with the rings bunching up, getting stuck by the skimmers or blocking water flow.

The negative:

1- Seems costly but if you compare it to a traditional blanket and a roller...the price wasn't that different.

2 - A pain to walk back and forth taking rings on and off...but then it would have been a bigger pain trying to do the blanket alone.

Tip: I bought a large (about 5' diameter) plastic baby pool and I lay my rings in there (stacked up) in my pool shed out of the sun when the rings are not on the pool.

One other note: I bought the Solar Sun Ring Australia (for high wind areas) they have small pockets on the rim that fill with a little water so that the wind doesn't blow the rings off the surface of the pool.

KM

I spent $275 for 13 of these rings. A total waste -- they do NOT raise the water temperature, in fact, it seems as if they keep it from getting warmer when they are on the pool on a sunny day. My pool has been UP to 80 degrees 2 days - all other days mid-seventies. I have not noticed any less evaporation of water or chemicals either. The rings also collect dirt and pool chemicals which must be cleaned off every few days. Then when you take the rings off the pool, you must store them flat, out of the sun, someplace where they won't be punctured. They are very flimsy -- like a cheap toy float material. Definitely not worth the price or the aggravation.

I would give it zero stars if I could. I could not be more disappointed in a product - I bought 16 of these and paid about $350, what a WASTE. You cannot leave them in the pool while the filter is running or they get all bunched up - not providing the 70-80% coverage that is recommended. In addition, they get sucked up into the skimmers, reducing water flow into the filter and can burn out the pump! Also, I thought they would be a safer alternative to a full solar "blanket" as I have dogs that like to swim. I witnessed my dog trying to swim through these, expecting the magnets to break apart, but they did not and the dog was struggling to get away from them - had to rescue the dog from being mixed up in the rings. Very POORLY designed. Not recommended to anywone.

I bought 15 of these rings about 4 years ago from another online company before they became available here and elsewhere, and I like them a lot. I'm planning on buying about 6 replacements for the few that have become defective over that time.

I'm a 65-year-old woman who swims on a regular basis once the water has heated up to a comfortable level. I'd read criticisms about them being a pain to remove to swim, but have found it to be easy. I stand on the pool steps, take one at a time, fold them in quarters and stack them in a shady place on our cool decking near the steps. Sometimes I remove only six to eight rings. They don't all need to be removed to have plenty of swim space left over. When I'm finished swimming, I unfold them and return them to the pool, still standing on the steps. It takes only a few minutes. If you don't have a shady area, cover the stacked rings with a large towel or blanket to protect them from the direct sun, which can cause the plastic to fuse to itself.

I have rarely had trouble with the rings clumping or being affected by strong winds. The magnets help hold them together. I have never had trouble with the magnets getting rusty. The few defective ones I have had developed leaks over time and water displaced the air...no idea how that happened!

I've had full solar blankets before, but they're impossible for me to remove and return by myself. They get cruddy too. At the end of the warm-up season, I hang the rings from the pool fence and hose them off and let them dry before storing in an outdoor storage cabinet. Love the idea about the baby pool to store them! Thanks!

I think these are a terrific invention for ease of use and effectiveness. The only drawback for me is practical long-term storage during late summer and winter when they're not used. They take up a lot of space. But a solar blanket takes up even more, and none I ever had lasted as long as the rings!

My pool is 40x16. I've always used a solar blanket but now I have solar rings. I'm not sure which I prefer but here are the pros and cons of the rings relative to the blanket.

Pros:

1) Doesn't fully cover the water which supposedly allows the pool to "breathe" so algae are less likely to form.

2) Seems just as effective as the blanket at increasing the temp and maintaining it overnight.

3) Safer because you can't get entangled in a solar ring like you could in a blanket.

4) I can see the automatic pool cleaner (Dolphin) when the rings are on and monitor what's going on.

5) I am hoping they last longer than the blanket which was about 3 years before they began to shed plastic bits into the filter.

6) Can take the rings on and off alone but always found it difficult to unroll the blanket without a second person.

Cons:

1) Very work intensive in putting them on and taking them off. The blanket rolls up and unrolls quickly - just a few seconds - but these rings are a royal pain to fish out of the pool. If they stay attached to each other by their magnets, it helps because you can slowly pull a group toward you, but you will still need to walk around to the other side and/or end of the pool to get the stragglers.

2) It's also a pain to put them on the pool because they tend to fold over on themselves and overlap another ring, so you have to make corrections.

3) When you roll-up the blanket, all the leaves and loose crud on top move to the end of the pool where the reel is located. When the trailing edge emerges, all that stuff is dumped in the water at the end of the pool where it's easy to quickly scoop out before it disseminates. But every time you pull out a solar ring, the debris on top goes in the pool.

4) The blanket stores neatly on its reel at the end of the pool. But you'll need to find a place for your rings that is out of the sun and out of the area where people walk; otherwise, they'll be damaged.

5) I have 23 rings and it was quite a chore to inflate them all which has to be done by mouth. It's not clear what the correct amount of air is from the instructions for either the inner section or the outer loop. If the loop has too much, it bows up and doesn't lie flat. For the inner ring, the instructions say an average person should use two full breaths but they make no mention of how many breaths for someone above average like me. :)

6) OCD alert - the blanket fits neatly on the pool but the rings take on no pleasing symmetrical pattern (as shown in the photo) and the wind will blow them somewhat on top of each other and fold portions of them over on themselves.

7) I don't remember how much the blanket costs but I suspect it was less than that of 23 rings. You should compare prices for your pool size.

I bought these even though they're pricey in the hopes they'd be an alternative to the "bubble wrap" solar covers, which tend to disintegrate eventually and leave a million little plastic dots all over the pool, the yard, and the filter.

My hopes were dashed, however:

- I bought ten of them, and about seven of them consistently held air. The others sank, and snagged my sweeper.

- They collect dirt and leaves like nobody's business. Removing them from the water without dumping said dirt into the pool was difficult at best.

- Detritus collects in the water BETWEEN the rings and cannot make its way to the skimmer, resulting in a dirtier pool.

- They seemed to have little or no effect on the temperature of the pool.

This year I went with a thicker (and clear, as opposed to blue/silver) bubble wrap cover than I used to use. Look for a review on one of those from me, but so far it's excellent.

We bought these last year. It looks so easy in the photo - difficult to achieve correct inflation, had to tie the "lead" ring to the handrail so that all didn't get carried down to the end. The magnets were all rusty within 2 months (not sure why as they seem to be sealed) and this put "rusty water" into the pool after each swim. They are not worth the $$, time or grief.

Tired of buying a hard to use solar cover every year, we decided to try these this year.

It does take more than recommend on the site. For our pool size they said 7...but it actually needed 9, it could almost take 10....but they work great!

The first day we put them in the pool it was 62, within 2 days it was up to 72...and it was not even that hot out. Because of the areas uncovered, I was worried it would lose alot overnight, but testing a few nights with them off and on, I have found we lose only 2 degrees at night with them on, but 6 degrees with them off, so they do help retain the heat.

The best part is it easy for 1 person, alone to either put them on or off, in or out of the pool. That was impossible with the standard solar cover. Even the kids can do it without making a mess.

Very, very happy with them!

We agree with all the positive comments about these solar rings. Last year we had a regular solar blanket, and it was a major pain! It was so heavy and cumbersome to take off (we didn't have one of those ugly, expensive, gigantic rolls), and the solar blanket got bunched up in a huge mess every time our in-floor automatic pool cleaning system ran. So, every day I was out there trying to straighten the thing out (not an easy feat). My hubby got desperate and tried to anchor the whole blanket down using grommets and rope around the perimeter and staking it down around the pool deck. It was a nice idea, but the wind would get under the edges and started to shred the thing. After all that trouble, it didn't even raise the temperature of the pool very much (maybe a total of 10 degrees from May to August in Tucson), and every time we'd take it off the pool a big muddy slurry (from the dust on top of the blanket mixing with pool water as we pulled it off the pool) would dump into the pool. Ugh.

So, this year we invested in the solar rings. Oh my goodness...what a HUGE improvement! First of all, they are a whole lot easier to take off the pool, one at a time, and putting them back on is a snap too. No heavy blanket. No muddy slurry. Second, they don't get all messed up from the waves generated by our in-floor cleaning system. Rather, they "ride the waves" and stay nice and flat on top of the water. Hallelujah! Third, they really heat up the water! They've only been on our pool for 3 weeks, and the temp of the pool has gone from 74-84 already, and it's only May! A final benefit is that the built-in water anchor around their edges keeps them perfectly flat during wind. No more solar blanket getting caught by the wind and blowing around!

The only downsides to the solar rings are that they are more expensive than the old solar blanket style, and they take a while to properly set up in your pool. However, they are worth every penny and every minute! When I saw the negative comments on here I don't believe them. My guess is that those people didn't take the time to set them up exactly according to the manufacturer's directions. You have to read those directions very carefully, and take your time at the beginning of the season to make sure they're inflated just right. We're completely satisfied with our solar rings!

We bought 16 of these sun rings to help heat our pool. First, they are a nightmare to inflate correctly; second, they don't raise the temperature of the pool even 1 degree; third, any wind blows them onto each other, then off the pool. They were a total waste of money, and we ended up throwing them away after spending a couple of months trying to make them work.