Sector
Sport and leisure
MEP design for pools, sports halls and gyms — pool hall humidity and corrosion, high ventilation loads, and lighting to the standard the sport requires.
OVERVIEW
Leisure buildings contain the two hardest environments in ordinary construction next to each other: a pool hall, which is warm, humid and chemically aggressive, and a sports hall, which has very high and very intermittent occupancy.
They fail in characteristic ways. Pool halls fail through condensation and corrosion — on glazing, in the roof build-up, and inside ductwork that was never specified for the environment. Sports halls fail through ventilation sized for an average that the building never experiences.
DESIGN
What drives the design
The pool hall is a moisture control problem first
Air is supplied to control humidity and to keep surface temperatures above dew point, not primarily to control temperature. That drives air distribution — glazing has to be washed with supply air to prevent condensation — and it drives the whole plant selection, because latent load rather than sensible load determines the size of the equipment.
Chloramines are corrosive and they collect low down
Disinfection by-products are heavier than air and concentrate at water level, where the swimmers are. Extract taken high up removes heat and leaves the problem. The extract strategy has to take air from where the contaminant actually is, and everything in the airstream — ductwork, fixings, coils, heat recovery — has to be specified for that airstream.
Sports hall ventilation is a diversity problem
Occupancy goes from empty to full and back within minutes, several times a day. Ventilation designed to a steady occupancy is either wasteful or inadequate, usually both at different times, so occupancy or CO₂ based control earns its cost here more clearly than in almost any other building type.
Lighting is specified by the sport, not by the room
Sports lighting requirements come from the governing body of the sport and the level of play, and they set illuminance, uniformity, glare and — where the sport is televised or filmed — colour rendering and flicker. These are specification inputs to be established before design, not assumptions to be made during it.
REGULATION
Statutory and guidance documents
Scotland and England take different statutory routes. Where a document applies to one and not the other, it says so.
- BS EN 12193:2018Light and lighting — sports lightingUK-wide
- CIBSE Guide B2Ventilation and ductworkUK-wide
- PWTAG Code of PracticePool Water Treatment Advisory GroupUK-wide
- HSG179Health and safety in swimming poolsUK-wide
- HSG274 Part 2Legionnaires’ disease — hot and cold water systemsUK-wide
- Sport England design guidanceFacility design guidance notesEngland and Wales
SCOPE
Typical scope in this sector
- Pool hall air handling, humidity control and glazing air distribution
- Corrosion-resistant specification for the pool airstream
- Pool water heating interface and plantroom services
- Sports hall ventilation with occupancy or CO₂ based control
- Sports lighting design to the governing body standard
- Changing room ventilation, hot water and legionella control
QUESTIONS
Common questions
Why does condensation form in swimming pool halls?
Because a surface in the hall is below the dew point of the air. Glazing is the usual culprit, which is why supply air is directed across it, but the more expensive failures are within the roof and wall build-up where warm moist air reaches a cold surface out of sight. Controlling it is a combination of humidity control, air distribution and a vapour control layer that the services design has to be coordinated with.
Where should extract be taken from in a pool hall?
From low level, close to the water, as well as high level. The disinfection by-products of most concern are denser than air and concentrate just above the water surface where swimmers breathe. A high level extract removes heat and moisture but leaves that layer largely undisturbed.
What lighting levels does a sports hall need?
It depends on the sport and the level of play rather than on the room. BS EN 12193 sets illuminance, uniformity and glare classes by class of competition, and individual governing bodies publish their own requirements which are often more demanding, particularly where matches are filmed. The specification should be established from the governing body for the intended use before the lighting is designed.
SERVICES