The Republic Goes Green

The Boys Republic is a private, nonprofit school and treatment community for troubled youngsters 13 to 17 years old. Since its founding in 1907, it has guided more than 23,000 at-risk teens. The late Steve McQueen, international film star and perhaps Boys Republic’s most famous graduate continued to support and visit the campus often during his later career.

Their 2,280 square foot swimming pool was heated with an old boiler system, which failed years ago. They were unable to repair or replace it at the time due to budget restraints. Recently, thanks to an anonymous donor they were able to install a solar pool heating system.

After careful research and comparisons, they selected the Solar Industries Solar Pool Heater due to its performance and outstanding quality, and Solar Heating Specialists of Riverside, California to design and install the system, because of their reputation and over 30 years of experience in solar pool heating.

Solar Heating Specialists installed 26 - 4 ft. x 8 ft. and 19 - 4 ft. x 12 ft. for a total of 45 SI collectors on the roof of the Tech / Rec center and used a Goldline GL-T auto control to operate the system. A Pentair model 4×160 variable speed pump was used as the booster pump to provide the flow to the solar collectors. They designed the system with 76% coverage to provide an April through October swim season.

Commercial swimming pools have become a large part of the solar swimming pool heating market, primarily due to rising energy costs and shrinking budgets. It is estimated that there are over 250,000 commercial pools in the US, ranging in size from small outdoor hotel pools to Olympic size pools at colleges and universities that are heated by either natural gas or propane.  The operators of these pools are searching for ways to reduce their operating cost and using solar to heat their pools is one of the best investments they can make.