Heat loss of water features (ME)

Mi39ke

This might be a good place to start. www.seresco.net
1-888-Seresco

I attended the Iowa Heat Pump Conference a while back and the most interesting seminar was related to designing natatoriums. These guys know how to control humidity, for sure. They talked about the complexities of all these water features in these indoor water parks, the surface areas of all that exploding water...man, fascinating stuff!

They must know about heating it as well, I would imagine.

Big ASHRAE people, if memory serves.

Michael Ward

[Deleted User]

Mental gymnastics....

Guys and gals, I have a "special" project at the official Mayors residence here in Denver. Their existing pool boiler tried to burn the house down, and they want a new one, high efficiency placed in replacement. I can calc the loads of the spa and pool, but this place has a water fall, actuall two of them in series, and a dozen vertial water features. Anyone know where I can find data to help me calculate the thermal loads of these additional water features?

TIA

ME

J.C.A._3

Me...?

How much of it is Heated..and how much of it is "just pumped"?

I quote you..." How far you gotta pump it? (We CAN do THAT!)

If it HAS to be heated, that changes the whole scenario.

Pool heating formulas are readily available..but fountain stuff is kind of... "We need THEESE numbers...to make it happen"..

My suggestion would be FIA, in Wouburn Ma.Try our friend George Carey @...gcarey@fiainc.com

Chris

ALH_4

Why heat a waterfall?

That seems like a waste to me unless the waterfall is part of the pool/spa and cannot be separated. You might contact a company that makes water playground equipment. They make a control to use this equipment for cooling a pool that gets too warm. They might have a "real world" idea of the heat loss off features like this would be. Rain Drop comes to mind.

[Deleted User]

Chris and Andrew...

It IS a part of the pool circulation system.

My thought is this. Its a known fact that pools loose 12 btus/sq ft/hr /degree diff between water and air. I can calculate the surface area exposure of the two different features, and add that to my pools surface losses. I don't THINK GPM has much to do with it, but wanted to check and see of any knew for sure.

Thanks for your input.

ME

Paul B._2

Evaporation rate

Hi Mark,

I'd ask the people who run the pool if they have a figure for make up water added to the pool everyday.

Typically fountains, and water slides have a pretty high evaporation rate, and it carries over to splashing out as well.

I've seen some instances where the btu's required to heat the make up water exceeded the pools surface heat loss rate.

Paul B.

tim smith

velly interesting question

This will be an interesting answer to this. I would think the water features would have a heat loss very similar to a hot tub when full jets are on. If you knew the sft/degree loss of the spa and then used that # and calculated the sft of water feature that this would be close. Figuring that the moving water is similar in the two. Just a wild guess. Tim

Andrew Hagen_2

Link

Sorry for the bad link. This is the Rain Drop I was thinking of. A hyphen makes a big difference. ;-) I like Paul's idea of measuring the makeup water.

hr

Turn the mayor green

suggest he lose the energy guzzling water features. Donate those "energy credits" to a more need application.

I do like the new Coors Field solar scoreboard. Colorado has always been a leader in solar and energuy efficiency ie the solar decathalon winners. Maybe the mayor could make a green statement, and use some solar IF that heated pool fountain is a must?

hot rod

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Unknown

I'm not sure, but be careful mark. evaporative losses can be pretty big as far as I can tell.. we just got bitten by a pool that "grew' three fountains from original plan to final install and it makes quite a difference, for sure...

Larry Weingarten

when in doubt

Mark: How about building a test rig to mimic the actual item and measure temperature drop across the water fall? Or, put a bucket under the actual waterfall and measure temperature in the bucket and at the top of the fall.

Yours, Larry

jp_2

time to experiment!!

take 2 buckets of 120F water. one is the control the other the tester. put in a sump pump, make a little waterfall into another bucket, go back and forth a couple times, then measure delta T and time.

scale up and you then have better than a wild guess.

jp_2

rethink gpm not related

to heatloss...... ?????