Sports complex heating

cruiser202006

Doing a sports complex at the moment. At second fix stage. Original plan was rinnai instant water heaters for water and a large gas boiler for heating fitted by an rgi(not me!) latest plan was air to water heating but coming in over 26k. Those familiar with gas would the original option with gas be the way to go or a large gas boiler/2 gas boilers and some quick recovery well insulated cylinders, weather compensation and as much zoning as possible. Fed by lpg gas as oil would be swept!

antoinolachtnai

Can you explain more about the problem with oil?

Not my field, but it really depends on the demand at the highest point of demand. You need to figure out how much hot water you need if all the showers and half the sinks are turned on at once and run long enough to cater for the place being full of sweaty athletes.

It sounds to me like it would need a good bit of storage but it depends on the size of the place I suppose.

I would really ask the architect or engineer or the manufacturer of the equipment to come up with the recommendation and sizing.

I would wonder what the impact of all the human activity in the centre on a busy day would have on the temperature of the place. I suppose it depends on how high the ceiling is? And will cooling be needed in the summer? If so, then that needs to be taken into account.

I don't know what good zoning will really do. If you want to heat one part of the centre and not the other you probably need some sort of heating system that will suit this. But is this really what you will want to do? If the centre is open, it is probably fully open.

All in all, it's a pretty specialised requirement and I'd say it would be worth getting the manufacturers to make a proposal based on detailed specs.

Tom44

Will the sports complex have daily use or just occasional use ?

cruiser202006

Thanks for the response 16 showers but could possibly be brought back to 12. Not quite sure on what sort of demand is going to be on it! Could be 1 person one nite and 20 the next!
It's a 30mtr x 20 mtr 2 story building wit slot of glazing. Gym upstairs which I don't see needing slot of heating. Basically it's a local community complex started in boom time. Honestly don't know how much use it will get but trying to put the most appropriate system in in the case it does get used frequently!

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Can you explain more about the problem with oil?

Not my field, but it really depends on the demand at the highest point of demand. You need to figure out how much hot water you need if all the showers and half the sinks are turned on at once and run long enough to cater for the place being full of sweaty athletes.

It sounds to me like it would need a good bit of storage but it depends on the size of the place I suppose.

I would really ask the architect or engineer or the manufacturer of the equipment to come up with the recommendation and sizing.

I would wonder what the impact of all the human activity in the centre on a busy day would have on the temperature of the place. I suppose it depends on how high the ceiling is? And will cooling be needed in the summer? If so, then that needs to be taken into account.

I don't know what good zoning will really do. If you want to heat one part of the centre and not the other you probably need some sort of heating system that will suit this. But is this really what you will want to do? If the centre is open, it is probably fully open.

All in all, it's a pretty specialised requirement and I'd say it would be worth getting the manufacturers to make a proposal based on detailed specs.

cruiser202006

Tom44 wrote: »

Will the sports complex have daily use or just occasional use ?

To be honest I'm not sure! Attached to a sports hall. Has a cafe to front, male and female changing rooms, showers, treatment room, jacuzzi, sauna, ice tub, gym etc winter time maybe more than summer. Hard to know really til it's done!

Tom44

Are ACV boilers still been fitted ?
They run on oil or gas.
I have one in a GAA changing rooms. (Fitted 18 years ago)
31 high pressure showers, 8 rads
Heats up to temp in 20 miniutes and never runs out of hot water.

Miles to the gallon is bad, (long term) but for the occasional use (6-10 hours per week) and high demand when in use, the club reckons it's extremely efficent.
The clubs priority was the showers.

antoinolachtnai

Remember, at the moment, they are concerned about installation costs. The day after the day they open, they will have forgotten all about the installation cost and will only be concerned about performance and operational cost (i.e., cost of running the system).

Maybe radiant heaters would work better than radiators? So you could get instantaneous heat?

Is there UFH?

Sounds like 50 litres of water per shower * 30 showers = a lot of hot water!

If there is a lot of uncertainty about how busy the place is going to be used and if money is an issue, maybe you can get the equipment manufacturer to design an 'upgradeable' system, so that you can start with a relatively small capacity, and if needed, you can add an extra boiler and an extra water cylinder later without too much trouble.

I would be thinking about how you are going to get enough pressure to give a really good shower. Bad pressure might turn out to be almost as bad as cold water. Pressurising 20 showers at once - could turn out to be a pretty specialised and complex thing to do. Really needs specialised advice.

Maybe it would be worth looking at a solar option for heating the water? The centre will be busy in the summertime after all. Again, if you could set up the system so you could add this later, it might be the most realistic solution.

Tom44

cruiser202006 wrote: »

To be honest I'm not sure! Attached to a sports hall. Has a cafe to front, male and female changing rooms, showers, treatment room, jacuzzi, sauna, ice tub, gym etc winter time maybe more than summer. Hard to know really til it's done!

Get their architect or engineer to specify what you have to fit.
That's the safest route for you.
Unless they accept what you specified.


On my club, previous plumber recommended a standard boiler and a 150 gallon cylinder.
Till I pointed out 2 - 3 hour heat up time and only 20 miniutes of hot water at full usage.

He didn't get the job.

cruiser202006

Yes you could be onto something regarding water storage. Start small and add on as required. No ufh. 30 radiators averaging 1200 long tho

antoinolachtnai wrote: »

Remember, at the moment, they are concerned about installation costs. The day after the day they open, they will have forgotten all about the installation cost and will only be concerned about performance and operational cost (i.e., cost of running the system).

Maybe radiant heaters would work better than radiators? So you could get instantaneous heat?

Is there UFH?

Sounds like 50 litres of water per shower * 30 showers = a lot of hot water!

If there is a lot of uncertainty about how busy the place is going to be used and if money is an issue, maybe you can get the equipment manufacturer to design an 'upgradeable' system, so that you can start with a relatively small capacity, and if needed, you can add an extra boiler and an extra water cylinder later without too much trouble.

I would be thinking about how you are going to get enough pressure to give a really good shower. Bad pressure might turn out to be almost as bad as cold water. Pressurising 20 showers at once - could turn out to be a pretty specialised and complex thing to do. Really needs specialised advice.

Maybe it would be worth looking at a solar option for heating the water? The centre will be busy in the summertime after all. Again, if you could set up the system so you could add this later, it might be the most realistic solution.

Tom44

Ok,
30 large rads makes it a different story. :eek:

antoinolachtnai

Again in principle the engineer should size the heating requirement. Things like insulation and the desired temperature makes a big difference to how much heat is actually needed (and it might even need to be cooled some times of year.) You can hook 30 rads up to a 20 kW home boiler and it will work fine. But it will still only deliver 20 kW of heat. That will probably be plenty for 300 days of the year, but the real question is, how many kW will it take to heat the building on the coldest day of the year?

And what drives that is how many kW of heat will the building lose to the outside environment on the coldest day of the year, which is basically a matter of how well the building is insulated.

And if they want to be able to heat the place up to temperature very fast on a cold day, they will need a bigger boiler again obviously.