Pump room ventilation

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Eddles
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My Pool: 66000 litre indoor swimming pool with UV and sand filtration, and 1200 litre hot tub.

Pump room ventilation

Postby Eddles » Sun 21 Feb, 2021 11:26

Hi all,

My parents got an indoor pool built back in 2001/2002 and ever since, the pump room has always been extremely hot, like over 40 °C (~105 °F) all year round. Our climate here is very mild, it rarely goes above/below 0 °C - 25 °C (30 °F - 75 °F) except for extreme weather. My dad has developed dementia, so responsibility of the pool has passed on to me. I've never been happy with the heat in the pump room, I feel it's shortening the life of many very expensive components, and the pool cover controller constantly overheats, it won't operate unless I have a desk fan pointed towards it permanently. It's very uncomfortable to be in the pump room for more than a couple of minutes, especially in the winter.

So I'd like to improve the ventilation in the pump room - my initial thoughts was to drill a hole in the outer wall of the pump room, and put a ventilation grille over the two holes. Then, drill a hole in the wall between the pump room and the pool area and put an extractor fan into this hole. This would be controlled by a thermostat located in the pump room that will turn on above a fixed temperature, something like 20°C? and then turn off when the temperature drops below this. This way, the pump room will be cooler, and the excess heat would be exhausted into the pool area, saving energy.

There is a couple caveats, while the changing room has a thermostatically controlled radiator, the WC doesn't have a radiator. As a consequence, it gets freezing cold in there in the winter. So, many years ago, my dad installed a ventilation fan leading up from the pump room, into the loft space, and then down in the WC room. The fan runs 24/7. It works at a fashion, but the WC doesn't get too warm, and the pump room remains boiling hot. This raises a concern - that after installing the new extractor fan, would the WC not get enough heat from the jerry-rigged ventilation my dad put in?

Secondly, the WC & changing rooms get extremely damp, and I have a yearly problem with mould growing on the ceiling/walls. Is there a way to improve this as well?

Finally, I'm concerned about whether this is safe to do so, I don't want to blow hazardous fumes into the pool area.

I've made a simple MS Paint drawing of the layout - the blue line is the jerry rigged ventilation tube my dad put in, the green line is the hole I want to drill through the wall, and the red line is where I'm planning to put the extractor fan in. The thick red line is the one and only radiator in the whole pool house. The pool house get its heat from the pool and hot tub. The gaps in the interior walls are doors.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thank you!

swimming pool hvac.png


Denniswiseman
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My Pool: 10k inground fibreglass, Telescopic Cover, Hayward Powerline pump, Quality filter with glass media, 27kw output heat pump, K-2006C test kit
Location: United Kingdom

Re: Pump room ventilation

Postby Denniswiseman » Mon 22 Feb, 2021 03:15

I don't see why your Dad's thing doesn't work because you are doing the same thing with your proposition
The only thing that would help would be to install the fresh air ventilation into the pump room to stop it being air locked and duct the blue line down to ground level, hot air rises
The mould and damp is caused by lack of ventilation, maybe if you can utilise the Dehumidifier to incorporate this area as well
Here in the UK all new properties have to have mechanical ventilation to the atmosphere in bathrooms to prevent this
Teapot
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My Pool: 12 x 24 (45m3) liner pool, Triton TR60 filter with AFM glass media (Activate) and variable speed pump running 0.08HP
Location: UK

Re: Pump room ventilation

Postby Teapot » Mon 22 Feb, 2021 03:20

Pretty much as Dennis described. You can't blow the warm air into a closed space without letting some of the cold air out in order to create a convection flow. You may need another fan mounted low to draw the cold air out of the wc into the pump room then the higher mounted fan will be able to do its job, obviously check the direction of air flow anyone can make a mistake!

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