Indoor pool ventilation
An in-depth feature on effective climate control of indoor pool halls by our key supplier and market leader, Heatstar: With advances in technology, pool ventilation is now just one part of the environmental control required for today’s indoor swimming pools. The key elements in pool environmental control include ventilation, air quality, dehumidification, air heating and pool water heating.
However, in today’s environmentally conscious society, responsible pool designers and installers have to find the most energy-efficient ways to manage and control the pool hall environment. In fact, new building control regulations lay down strict guidelines for energy efficiency in swimming pool applications – saving the planet and reducing the client’s energy costs.
Let’s take a look at one of the key elements of the pool hall environment – humidity. If the pool hall humidity level is not limited then heavy condensation will occur on the pool hall structure leading to rapid deterioration of the décor and eventually possible structural failure. To prevent this a method of dehumidification must be employed.
In the past, fuel costs were comparatively cheap and therefore it was possible to simply expel the humid, energy-laden pool air to outside whilst replacing it with cooler fresh air which then required rapid heating to an acceptable temperature. Given present fuel costs, such a wasteful approach would understandably prove prohibitively expensive to operate and would now be in breach of today’s building control regulations.
It is, therefore, essential that environmental control systems utilise methods of energy recovery, often using refrigeration technology, to condense out excess humidity without the need to throw away the warm pool air. Heatstar is the leading UK manufacturer of swimming pool environmental control systems and has been developing cutting-edge technology for pool climate control for over 30 years.
A Heatstar system such as the Phoenix EC encompasses all the available energy-saving technologies and is fully compliant with the latest building control regulations for both residential and non-residential applications. The Phoenix EC represents the optimum environmental control solution for the highest specification indoor swimming pools. The Phoenix EC is able to out-perform alternative equipment by combining three different technologies to achieve unrivalled performance.
“Blue EC” on demand fan technology
The most energy efficient digital fans on the market also utilise auto-fan technology where the speed and power of the air re-circulation fan are managed automatically to enable significant energy savings whenever there is a low demand for dehumidification or air heating. This provides the lowest operating cost of any such system.
“Crossflow” recuperator
The recuperator passively conducts heat from the exhausted pool room air via a series of adjoining plates directly to the incoming colder fresh air. This process, in combination with the dehumidification heat pump, produces unrivalled levels of heat recovery.
Dehumidification heat pump
Creates a cold evaporator coil to condense the moisture present in the air to reduce humidity levels. Through this process, the heat pump absorbs both latent and sensible energy which is then upgraded and recycled back into both the pool room air and pool water. Efficiencies of over 380% are possible through this process.
If you have any questions on pool hall ventilation, visit our FAQs page. Our thanks to Heatstar for compiling this article for LSPC.
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At London Swimming Pool Company we specialise in swimming pool design, construction and refurbishment, so if you need advice on a brand new pool, contact us for an initial discussion – there’s no substitute for expert advice.
