Cool Your PC With A Swimming Pool

You heard me right, use your swimming pool to cool your PC. We have seen people tap directly into the water supply in a house and so on but this is the first time I have seen a swimming pool used to water cool multiple PCs. Thanks to Philip Diaz for the link.

The point of this experiment was to decrease the dependence on air conditioning while minimizing costs. This entire project cost no more than $400.

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thats insane, thats for the awesome link
Only problem i would have with this... Michigan = Cold ass Frozen Winters

off topic: the comments link on the front page links to hardforum.com/text

on topic: that is definitely [H]ard

He approached this in the wrong way, pool water is dirty. He should have done a contained loop within that loop so that he can keep his loops clean and he can very easily upgrade.

Right now if I was him I'd worry about the amount of pressure and the dirty water.

wipes tear from eye

Beautiful, just beautiful.

The problem would be with anyone that has to drain their pool in the winter--but then again you could make some sort of closed loop and cool the water with the cold air from outside. You'd also want some hot exhaust from the computers to help heat the house.

Can't edit here, but agreed with Ockie. Gotta have the ph balanced or he could wind up with calcium buildup (though that's usually only at the waterline.)

Also, occasionally you have to dump in muriatic acid (this being a chlorinated pool) so you'd have to be very careful to not dump it around the intakes, or who knows what would happen. Probably nothing but...

And another way to heat your pool

haha thats a great idea

Ockie said:

He approached this in the wrong way, pool water is dirty. He should have done a contained loop within that loop so that he can keep his loops clean and he can very easily upgrade.

Right now if I was him I'd worry about the amount of pressure and the dirty water.

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What, you don't like dead bees in your system? Urine not a good cooling solution?

Axion22 said:

What, you don't like dead bees in your system? Urine not a good cooling solution?

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Now who pees in the pool, seriously? *looks around*

Now there are 2 types of people in this world. Those who pee in the pool, and those admitting to peeing in the pool. I admit to peeing in the pool

i always spit pool water in peoples faces =(

im putting protias urine in my mouth, Gross!

wouldnt putting the loop right after the filter, help keep things smooth? Get nice and clean water into the loop and the blocks?

Langly said:

i always spit pool water in peoples faces =(

im putting protias urine in my mouth, Gross!

wouldnt putting the loop right after the filter, help keep things smooth? Get nice and clean water into the loop and the blocks?

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Depends, if you have a pool heater it might keep things nice and smooth but also nice and warm.

Another issue is that pool filters do not kill everything.


What would be a better idea is a MASSIVE radiator submerged in the pool for cooling.

Ockie said:

Depends, if you have a pool heater it might keep things nice and smooth but also nice and warm.

Another issue is that pool filters do not kill everything.


What would be a better idea is a MASSIVE radiator submerged in the pool for cooling.

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The thing I really question is how effective this would be in summer. Pools get quite warm in the summer.

protias said:

The thing I really question is how effective this would be in summer. Pools get quite warm in the summer.

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Fairly depending on where you live, but I'm sure if you mounted this far down near the bottom you'd get some cold water... but probably not very cold.

Hmm..I would have used an old tube bundle from a minimax heater and used it as an air or water heat exchanger...pool water properly taken care of is at times cleaner than tap water..the problem of using it to cool a PC is the mineral content rises ,temp changes,TA,CH,CA change and so on..as well as any small leaf could block the intake.

I am surprised he did not use a cal pump which is submersible.

Always nice to see case stories on various esoteric cooling setups.

However, not to be nitpicky, but he claims this is an “energy-efficient” way to cool computers. Of course, he fails to realize that having a pool is a massive waste of energy in the first place…

- alphadog

alphadog said:

Of course, he fails to realize that having a pool is a massive waste of energy in the first place…

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Not really..it costs more to maintain a yard,at least in S.CA,than a pool.
I have been in the pool business ~ 18 years.

Have you considered upgrading to a heat exchanger thus allowing you to have a clean loop and dirty loop? Bascially double the pumps, one from the pool, and one for the equip.

Trepidati0n said:

Have you considered upgrading to a heat exchanger thus allowing you to have a clean loop and dirty loop? Bascially double the pumps, one from the pool, and one for the equip.

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Actually if he used a heat exchanger he could just let it sit in the pool and/or hang it off the side...so no second pump would be needed.

As for the dirty comment, isn't this the water returning to the pool from the pump/ filter? It should be fairly clean in that case. I think it is a pretty neat idea though.

Kibbles said:

Not really..it costs more to maintain a yard,at least in S.CA,than a pool.
I have been in the pool business ~ 18 years.

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I find it impossible to believe that a patch of grass covering a few square yards is going to cost more than a chemically balanced hole that had to be dug, with electronics and equipment maintaining it and not to mention the heating, filtering, and maintaining of it.

Personally, I wouldn’t be too worried about the cleanliness of the water. Most pools have a multi-stage filter system. Large debris like leaves and bugs get filtered out in the collection baskets at the sides of the pool. If there is an intake at the bottom of the pool, there will usually also be a collection basket near the pump. Everything then goes through a sand filter. This seems to do a good job of getting out even small particles such as sediment, bits of plant matter, and other tiny stuff (I was a pool boy for a few years way back in HS).
From the pictures, it looks like he lives in a climate where the pool will not freeze in the winter. However, if you live in a cold climate, there is a solution to this. Some of the newer pools don’t have to be completely drained in the winter. The plastic lining of the pool can expand and contract as the water freezes. Plus, assuming that the pool is at least 15 feet deep or so, I doubt the water at the bottom would freeze during the winter. All one would have to do is simply shut off the intakes at the top of the pool, make sure there is a water return at the bottom of the pool, and you could use the additional pump to circulate water all winter. The only problem with this is that the water would be quite cold and you would likely have to deal with condensation.
However, that might not be too much of a problem. The colder it gets outside, the colder the water in the pool gets. The dew point outside also drops, and therefore the dew point inside is likely to decrease as well. This could negate the problem of condensation.

There is one final option to deal with the winter issue. Get a few dozen quad core machines, get them all folding for the [H]ord, and use that to heat your pool in the winter!!!!

Either way, this is a PIMP idea and something I have always wanted to try. I really like his idea of using the pool water as a radiator for his A/C. Now all I have to do is save up enough money for multiple PCs to make this worth while…. Oh and I need a pool too. Anyone think this will work with my Spongebob kiddy pool? I set it up in the front yard and tried to meet some ladies… they were NOT impressed… Maybe telling them it is also a radiator for my water cooling setup will help me out?

So how about in the summer with kids taking a piss in the water? would "piss water" effect cooling?