Sometimes we are faced with a roof that has multiple roof vents where we want to install solar pool heating panels. Getting around these vents is an important key to achieving the coverage needed to heat a pool in many cases.

Fortunately, solar panel headers can be bridged by sections of PVC pipe. An adapter is installed to couple the header to standard PVC pipe using a solvent weld. This allows us to get around larger vents or multiple vents as we recently had to do with the solar panel design shown below. In this case we had two 2″ plumbing vents and a 4″ goose neck vent on the ideal west roof. One of the plumbing vents fits nicely between panels where the headers join, but there was not enough room between the other two vents to fit a panel. As a result, we decided it would be best to bridge this section with PVC and jump over to the remaining two panels.

This configuration works well when there are roof vents, skylights, attic fans, or other obstructions blocking the installation of solar pool heating panels. An alternative is to use a separated tube panel to place the vent between individual panels tubes, but separated tube panels are inherently less efficient, so we try to avoid that if possible.

If you have a roof pocked by vents, don’t assume we can’t work with it! While a bit more challenging, there are lots of options to work solar pool heating panels around your existing roof obstructions.