Swimming pool pump room overheating

[JimBob James]

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!

 

[flameport]

Where is all this excessive heat coming from?
What type of boiler is it, and how has it been installed?

 

[JimBob James]

Where is all this excessive heat coming from?
What type of boiler is it, and how has it been installed?

Thank you so much for your response! It's an old oil fired regular central heating boiler, can't remember the make/model - roughly similar to the Worcester Danesmoor I think. Was installed at the same time the pool was built. It runs the central heating for the radiator in the changing rooms, and heats up a small hot water tank (100 litres?) for the shower & wash basin in the changing rooms. The hot water tank is located in the garage. The boiler heats up the pool as well.

Other potential sources of heat is the dehumidifier, a Monitair 110 - it's very hot to touch. It does have a built-in heater, but it's off all the time. There's the pool pump as well. There's plenty of other swimming pool related electronics/accessories, but their contribution would be minimal compared to the others. That's pretty much it, I think.

Edit: The boiler's a Trianco Eurostar.

 

[conny]

We have a Trianco Eurostar in our utility room and it does generate a fair bit of heat.
Do you use chlorine or bromine in your pool and do you have a sand filter system for purification?
If you use chlorine is it an automatic system, (uses a programmable module and once set it doses the required amount of chemical as and when required).
All these systems generate heat, especially with the boiler in the same room.
Pumps can run quite hot with no danger of damage but you check to see the external fan is running at the right speed. i.e. very fast.
I once had cause to look at a motor that was running hot and it turned out the plastic cooling fan was just turning on the shaft as it had become worn. One of the signs of a faulty fn is a 'chattering' or clattering noise when it is running and certainly on start-up or run down.

 

[big-all]

just a though
if the pump room is fairly well sealed the extraction fan wont work very well so make sure you have both an entry vent [door cracked open] and an exit vent in the toilet [door cracked open ] so there is minimal resistance to air flow

 

[sxturbo]

Probably need proper ventilation, likely need a fan pulling air into the room which inturn will push the air out.

Would need proper HVAC calculations etc.