dehumidification
Indoor pools are wonderful as both design challenges and family recreation centers. But as Paolo Benedetti discusses here, they'll stand the test of time only if you take care of moving the moisture they generate away from the indoor space -- no shortcuts allowed!
With vast experience in both the residential and commercial markets, Kevin Ruddy is one of the watershaping industry’s foremost experts on the design and construction of indoor swimming pools and their surrounding environments. Here, in this first of two features covering a complicated residential project, he discusses the painstaking process of designing a pool and the systems that integrate it with the surrounding structure. It seems counterintuitive, but indoor swimming pool environments are wholly and entirely distinct from their outdoor cousins. The differences are mostly contained in the fact that, indoors, the designer needs to consider not only the pool and its hydraulic performance, but also the enclosure and the air-handling and dehumidification systems that makes these spaces comfortable and enjoyable for clients and their guests. Through years of designing and installing indoor pools, we at Omega Pool Structures (Toms River, N.J.) have learned – sometimes the hard way – what works and what doesn’t. Now, supported by more than two decades’ experience, we’ve
Designing structures to surround indoor pools offers the watershaper the fundamental challenge of creating an interior space that needs all the functional characteristics of an exterior one. That's so mainly because ordinary residential structures aren't made to enclose anything that even remotely approaches the moisture levels encountered when an indoor pool is surrounded and separated from the open air. This leads to consideration of the air-handing, temperature-control and humidity-related issues covered in another article on this subject (click here), but it almost always leads as well to a need to
The Arthur D. Kinney Natatorium was designed with a practical mission in mind: From the outset, the facility was intended to provide long-term performance, outstanding aesthetics, ease of operation and minimal maintenance life cycles while enhancing the university's recruiting efforts and fostering individual and team achievement. In this case, however, the "individuals" aren't just star athletes pursuing records and titles. Rather, the natatorium on Bucknell University's Lewisburg, Pa., campus is unique in the sense that the school chose not to segregate varsity athletes from general student/recreational users. Indeed, the facility, part of the university's grand Kenneth G. Langone Athletics & Recreation Center, is designed to bring everyone
It seems so simple: No matter whether it's a residential or commercial project, the design parameters for indoor swimming pools generally call for warm water (typically 82 degrees, or a bit less for a competition pool), air temperature two to four degrees warmer than the water, and a relative humidity in the enclosed space of between 55% and 60%. And it wasn't some committee of pool builders who came up with those figures: The numbers are endorsed and published by the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration & Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) and have been accepted as
