Project Snapshot: Equinox Fitness – Pool Dehumidification Unit

 Equinox Fitness – Chestnut Hill, MA   Equinox Fitness is a luxury fitness company with its national headquarters in New York.  They recently designed, built and commissioned a new facility in Chestnut Hill, MA.  The original design called for an 8 ton compressor dehumidification unit to serve the lap pool.  

The Problem:   The manufacturer recommends a 50 foot maximum distance between the pool dehumidification unit and the air cooled condensing unit (ACCU).  This is a recommendation to help minimize refrigerant and oil migration issues to the outdoor condenser.   This, in turn, helps decrease risk of compressor damage and provides lower maintenance costs.  In this particular application the indoor pool dehumidification was a significant distance (nearly 150 feet) from the designed location for the air cooled condensing unit.  The traditional air cooled condensing unit was not an option.

 Overcoming Condenser Distance Constraints:   This was an easy challenge for  Seresco.   About 40% of the units Seresco provides use fluid coolers in lieu of Refrigerant Based ACCU’s.  This is a standard product offering in their Protocol Line of Pool Dehumidification Units.    

In the Pool Dehumidification Unit Seresco provides a heat exchanger and a pumping package. In the heat exchanger the refrigerant loop dumps the rejected heat to a glycol loop. It is then pumped to the Fluid Cooler on the roof. Piping is PVC from the Pool Dehumidification Unit to the Fluid Cooler. The Fluid Cooler distance can be nearly anything (150 feet is not a problem).

Design Advantages: There are many reasons why this type of application makes a lot of sense.  

• Greatly reduced cost of ownership –  Up to 85% less refrigerant charge! – Significantly less cost to install and maintain compared to alternative refrigerant systems  
• Less refrigerant means lower environmental risk and additional LEEDs points
• Tried and proven technology – dry coolers have been used in the precision air conditioning industry for decades
• Factory sealed refrigeration circuit – no expensive site refrigeration work
• Less expensive install; uses only one set of PVC pipes instead of a copper line set for each compressor
• Greater installation flexibility for split system configurations; Air cooled AC heat exchanger can be located a considerable distance from the unit.

 This application was also equipped with WebSentry,  Seresco’s online monitoring, reporting and service optimization tool.  

Related Blog Posts:
Pool Unit Design: WebSentry – 24/7 Factory Monitoring
Indoor Pool Design: Part 1 of 4 – Confirming Owner Expectations
Indoor Pool Design: Part 2 of 4 – Load Calculation