PassivHaus Swimming Pools

[SusBE Mike]

Hi there

Does anyone know of any case studies on PassivHaus Swimming Pools in Europe or the UK?

Is it even possible to achieve the 15KWh/m2/pa? 

If anybody has more info or docs they can highlight that'd be great.

Regards

Mike

[JSHarris]

Tough call, I'd say.  Indoor pools usually need to be around 28 deg C to be comfortable for leisure use, maybe 27 deg C for exercise use, any cooler and they tend to feel a bit uncomfortable, I believe (I've recently been looking at this). 

The heat loss from the pool surface will be the killer.  Even with the sides and bottom of the pool are super insulated, as for a 10 deg delta T between the pool and the air in the pool room, assuming still air, then around 90 W/m² will be lost from radiation/conduction and around 140 W/m² will be lost evaporatively and by convection.  The evaporative loss can be reduced to near-zero when the pool isn't in use and the radiative/conductive/convective loss can probably be reduced by 30% or more by using a close-fitting, well insulated, floating pool cover.

Even so the pool is likely to chuck around 30 to 50W/m² or so into the air in the pool room 24hrs a day, 365 days a year.  Much of this heat could be recovered with a good MVHR, and perhaps used to good effect in heating the rest of the house, or recovered with an air/water heat pump and used to replace some of the lost heat from the pool, albeit at the cost of more primary energy to drive the HP.

All told I think it might be a tall order to do this and still stay within the PassivHaus criteria, unless the house is a pretty big.  It might be possible to use the pool as a heat buffer, but everything would hinge on the relative efficiency of the pool insulation and heat recovery systems, I believe.

It goes without saying that the majority of the pool heat would be best provided by a solar thermal system.

[SusBE Mike]

Yes no doubt a tough call, although I suspect that they'd look to claim PassivHaus on other grounds possibly a peak heat load. But even then the HWS are going to be massive in a leisure centre.  I know that in other non-domestic buildings PH assessment can be approached form other angles. For example the 15KWh for something like a super market would be relatively straight forward in terms of space heating and therefore largely redundant as a metric.

I understand that the basic premise in a PH swimming pool is that because of the super insulation and triple glazing used, the RH in the hall environment is allowed to float much higher without risking the building fabric. This would combat the latent heat losses from the pool water to an extent, and then heat recovery is used via efficient MVHR.

But i'm really after some info on this! Any ultra low energy/PH leisure centres you've come across?. Also be good to know what kind of assessment criteria would be required for a PH pool?

Be great if you have some docs I could sink my teeth into.

Thanks for the Reply

Regards

Mike

[heinbloed]

A very simple issue, you have a thermal storage build-in modern architects dream about. Contact

http://www.sonnenhaus-institut.de/

they speak English.

[SusBE Mike]

Hi Thanks for the replay unfortunately my Deutsch is not the best! Great concept for domestic new build. But i'm really looking at commercial buildings. Sport centres leisure centres etc.

I'll PHI another try.

Regards

[heinbloed]

ERSTES PASSIVHAUSSCHWIMMBAD ('first PH swimming pool')

HOTEL EDELWEISS, FAM. BERGMÜLLER

Picture:

http://www.igpassivhaus.at/portals/0/IG-PH-A/News/Schwimmbad_1.jpg

Articles published by the IG PH (Austria):

http://www.igpassivhaus.at/K%C3%A4rnten/Aktuelles/tabid/412/Announcement1244/586/language/en-US/Default.aspx

http://www.igpassivhaus.at/%C3%96sterreich/Aktuelles/tabid/62/Announcement983/548/language/en-US/Default.aspx

designed by

http://www.architekten-ronacher.at/

technical equipment by

http://www.heiz1.at/

There was at least one more renovation project where a public bath was renovated and the new added half turned into a PH pool/ leisure area. But in Germany or Austria as well. I don't know of  Anglican (language area) projects.

[SusBE Mike]

Ok great thanks heinbloed,  this is certainly a nice start.

I know I wouldn't mid taking a dip with that view.

Thanks again

Mike

[heinbloed]

A few more:

Coppenbruegge still in progress here: http://www.passivhaus.de/index.php?id=239&L=1
 with only a small English text in a general info brochure here:
https://services.nordrheinwestfalendirekt.de/broschuerenservice/download/70962/ie_2011_2_eng.pdf  ("Pool technology discovers heat pumps")

Bamberg here: http://www.enob.info/en/german-federal-ministry-of-economics-and-technology-competition-energy-optimised-construction-2009/new-construction-of-passive-house-indoor-swimming-pool-facilities-in-bamberg-germany/

http://www.bambados.de/cms/English_page/About_Bambados1/About_Bambados.html


Lippe here: http://www.menerga.com/News.114.0.html?&L=0&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=311&tx_ttnews[backPid]=72&cHash=a0afe4b588

http://www.schwimmbadcheck.de/18679/Indoor-Swimming-Pool-Lippe-Bad-in-Luenen.html

http://inhabitat.com/worlds-first-passivhaus-public-pool-opens-in-lunen-germany/lippe-bad-lunen-passivhaus-pool-6/

[heinbloed]

An article about the Bamberg pool  posted today, incl. some numbers:

http://oekonews.at/index.php?mdoc_id=1067730