Located on the Cardigan Bay coast of Southern Gwynedd in North Wales, Llanfendigaid ouse, a three-storey, Grade II listed, Georgian stone house, has been in the same family for over 600 years.
With a long-term goal of being self- sufficient in heating and electricity, an impressive project set out to ensure that the historic estate, including its indoor swimming pool, was as energy efficient as possible. Acknowledging the immense challenges involved, the estate turned to Cheshire Pool Services, based in Warrington. Led by Chris Shore, the company have built up a reputation for its ‘can do’ attitude from from new pool installations to pool refurbishment as well as servicing and maintenance.
To achieve the estate’s goal of having the most energy efficient pool, it was essential the three main parts of the project; the heat pump system, the swimming pool itself, and the air handling unit, were all specified using the most energy efficient technology available. The introduction of an underground heat pump system allows the swimming pool water to be heated via the thermal energy captured from the ground. This heat pump system is powered by electricity that is generated from 264 photovoltaic (PV) solar panels. This setup has improved the seasonal coefficient of performance rating and allows the estate to be self-sufficient.
Focusing on the swimming pool itself Cheshire Pool Services were tasked with constructing a brand new thermally efficient pool and to ensure that it connected to the new incoming renewable energy supplies, via a newly designed plantroom. This included the installation of a deluxe reinforced pool liner and an automatic pool cover which will help ‘seal off’ the pool water surface, reducing evaporation and keeping heat loss to an absolute minimum. To battle the issue of running groundwater the swimming pool depth was significantly reduced which will aid the reduction of heat loss when the groundwater comes into contact with the pool shell. When choosing the optimum environmental control system Cheshire Pool Services worked with Heatstar to specify the Heatstar Phoenix EC 2000 Super+ air handling unit.
Encompassing all the available energy saving technologies and fully compliant with the latest building control regulations for commercial applications the Phoenix EC represents the optimum and uncompromised environmental control solution for the highest specification indoor swimming pools. During the design of the pool hall Cheshire Pool Services made the decision to lower the ceiling height of the pool hall to act as a concealment for the new Phoenix system. Chris Shore, Director of Cheshire Pool Services comments: “The brief given to us was to make sure the project was as energy efficient as possible and we pulled out all the stops to make this happen.
Heatstar’s quality is consistent and in line with Cheshire Pools Service’s own philosophy and as expected, the
Phoenix EC unit has performed perfectly since installation”. All the hard work of carrying out such an impressive project has certainly paid off with Cheshire Pool Services taking top honours in the ‘Energy Efficient / ECO Project’ category at the recent UK Pool & Spa Awards in Birmingham.
Cheshire Pool Services
Tel. 01925 348 002
www.cheshirepoolservices.co.uk
Heatstar
Tel. 01983 521 465
