raebates
Staff member
- 18,217
Many of you know that my sweet husband, The Furry Guy, is also known as MacGyver. He took a 6' round, metal horse trough, added a homemade, giant fish tank filter, and then added a passive solar heater. Here are the photos.
Here's the pool. The filter is made of two tall kitchen trashcans filled with charcoal, fiber-fil, and gravel. The hose is old vacuum cleaner hose. Originally a sump pump moved the water, but a cousin gave us an old pool/pond pump, so we're using that now.
This is the heater. It's basically a segment of black tile. The sun heats it, heating the water flowing through it. This year he encased it in insulation and topped it with Plexiglas to preserve and concentrate the heat.
The pool ain't pretty, but it works! It's not really hot-tub hot, but it's nice and warm. I was in it today and the pool thermometer read 80F.
Can't quite figure out what that filter's sitting on? It's the tub from a washing machine. There are several that have been filled with gravel and buried in various places around the yard to help with drainage.
Here's the pool. The filter is made of two tall kitchen trashcans filled with charcoal, fiber-fil, and gravel. The hose is old vacuum cleaner hose. Originally a sump pump moved the water, but a cousin gave us an old pool/pond pump, so we're using that now.
This is the heater. It's basically a segment of black tile. The sun heats it, heating the water flowing through it. This year he encased it in insulation and topped it with Plexiglas to preserve and concentrate the heat.
The pool ain't pretty, but it works! It's not really hot-tub hot, but it's nice and warm. I was in it today and the pool thermometer read 80F.
Can't quite figure out what that filter's sitting on? It's the tub from a washing machine. There are several that have been filled with gravel and buried in various places around the yard to help with drainage.
He's been called a lot of things through the years. In junior and early senior high school they called him Master or Norman. (Take a look at our last name if you're confused.)He grew his beard and hair out his senior year and rapidly became Grizzly Adams. In recent years he's been compared to Marty Stouffer (host of a PBS backyard wildlife series) and Travis Tritt.He's one of 7 kids, 5 of which are male, so people kept asking me which Bates boy I was married to. Once he was out of the marines and had his hair and beard back, I started responding "The furry one."He didn't officially become The Furry Guy until I was here on CS. I noticed that KG refers to his wife as The Kat Lady. I talk about my sweetie a lot, and I got tired of the same old DS. Ta da! The Furry Guy. Now I refer to him that way a lot. It usually gets a chuckle, followed a knowing nod from anyone who's ever seen him.
