Swimming Pool Design Consultant
I. New Designs & Upgrades
We help Architects and Site Managers of School, Hotel, Health Club, Public and Local Council Pools to Design New Pools and Upgrade their Existing Pools.
If the Client has a commercial or residential swimming pool that needs attention, renovation or has very high operating costs, Bluepools can carry out a Survey and provide a Bespoke Report that directly adresses the concerns of the Client.
"We asked Will Witt to inspect our swimming pool complex of indoor and outdoor pools - he provided a detailed report that not only covered all our concerns but also explained how the technical issues impacted on our Health and Safety responsibilities as well as how we could really reduce the running costs."
II. The Complexity of the Problem
The pressure is on to maximise revenue generation and reduce the running costs of every public swimming pool in the UK.
It is a known that:
- New or renovated pools that meet present day standards will generate more revenue
- If the pool water area is too small it will be under constant pressure during busy periods and this will have the effect of reducing revenue
- Pools that are too big are less cost-effective and will increase the level of subsidy required.
III. It is vital to get the pool size right
The provision of separate water areas for different activities is very unlikely nowadays to be justifiable on a cost basis. As such, competitive activities like diving and synchronised swimming may only be provided on a cost effective basis by including movable floors and bulkheads or booms.
Pool Designers are needed to get the Concept Design of a pool right!
The world-wide building industry is dominated by International Architects - many of them are British or American - and the world-wide civil engineering industry is dominated by British and American consultants.
So it is very stange that the world-wide pool industry is dominated by Pool Installation contractors who provide "Design and Build" Services.
You will see from this website that we do not believe that they know how to get the Concept Design right! They are good at the detailed engineering - and that is what they should concentrate on.
But if the basic concept is wrong the project will never be really successful - not matter how good the detailed engineering is!
Bluepools believes that if a Pool Contractor is responsible for the Concept Design of any part of a pool project it will have real flaws that will cause real problems throughout its useful life...
.... and more importantly its life expectancy will be halved if the engineering is not done properly in the first place.
IV. We must work closely together
Bluepools work closely with the Client or their Architect to develop a Concept Design.
The advantages of this are:
- An optimised layout of the pool, deck areas and changing room facilities to facilitate control of and the flow of customers through the facility.
- Optimised use of the volume of the building that is assigned to swimming activities by getting the right balance between air space over the pool, deck areas and undercroft areas.
- Optimised location of the balance tanks, filters, pumps and control panels to minimise piping run lengths and pumping costs.
- Optimised layout of the undercroft areas to minimise floor level trip hazards, access to the back of the pool walls and access to the underside of the overflow gutters.
- Ensuring that there are no areas where high humidity can persist or cold bridges that instigate condensation and ugly staining of the building fabric.
- Ensuring that the water supply to the pool from the main in the street is adequate as well as the drains required for emptying the pool quickly in the event of an emergency.
V. Typical Commercial swimming pool design faults
The detailed engineering is normally fine in public, health club and council owned swimming pools but..........
- "Through life" energy cost forecasts are not carried out to balance initial capital costs against "through life" running costs.
- The access arrangements to the undercroft areas of public pools are often unsafe and in many cases completely inaccessible.
- Long term corrosion problems are ignored by not providing for access to control corrosion and by not allowing temperature and humidity control in both the undercroft and the pool hall.
- Stainless steel installations are not designed and specified in a way that reduces rapid corrosion of the stainless steel elements - yes it does corrode unless it is properly designed and installed.
- Filtration systems are undersized for the peak bathing loads - this is especially true for school pools where 30 people can be in the pool continuously for long periods of time.
- Badly designed Pool Decks are a major problem - simply because splash out must be returned to the pool and deck cleaning water taken to the sewers.
- Balance tanks are undersized or located where they can overflow and cause flooding - this results in a requirement to run bigger pumps for longer periods.