Introduction

This chapter briefly presents some non-domestic buildings designed with energy conservation in mind.

The swimming pool, Sheiling Schools

Given the opportunity to design a swimming pool for a school for handicapped children, it was automatically part of the brief to keep the running costs to a minimum, despite the fact that water temperatures had to be maintained at 27 C for use throughout the year. The Energy Design Group made an initial study which investigated the potential of heat pumps and heat-reclaim systems, glazed and unglazed solar collectors, variable speed ventilation control and the use of a pool cover.

Initially it was felt that a heat-pump system would be preferable, using extract air as a primary source of heat. This, however, entailed expensive duct work to return the air to the boiler room, and also added considerably to the capital costs since an auxiliary gas-fired heater could not be dispensed with. Other heat-reclaim systems were dependent on the use of ozone or other very expensive purification systems which reduced their overall cost-effectiveness. (Chlorine from the pool is corrosive over the long term.)

The entire building was built to a very low budget, competitive with quotations from design-and-build contractors who offered cheap standard solutions. The over cost of energy-saving measures had thus to be kept to a minimum.

It was therefore decided to opt for high thermal insulation (100 mm of polystyrene on the roof and 80 mm of glass fibre to the walls with double glazing to all windows), a minimum volume for the building, and a high internal thermal mass.