for Sick Indoor Pool Syndrome

Discovering
the Cure
for Sick Indoor Pool Syndrome
Nick Agopian, T.Sc.A.
T
he prevalence of indoor pools in the
last 30 years has generated a rash of
asthmatic conditions among swimmers,
lifeguards and facility managers who are
exposed on a prolonged basis to poor indoor
air quality (IAQ) or lack of it.
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November/December 2009
The culprit is chloramines—free chlorine
molecules that attach to human waste
molecules of sweat and urine. Many times
chloramines stay near the water surface
where swimmers’ main breathing occurs.
Heating, ventilation and air conditioning
(HVAC) systems generally re-circulate
these toxins because conventional media
filters designed for airborne particulates are
incapable of trapping gaseous contaminants
such as chloramines and other pool
chemicals, which just flow through.
People with prolonged exposure to these
gaseous contaminants may feel symptoms
such as headaches, increased shortness of
breath, eye irritation, chest tightness and
other problems mainly due to respiratory
functions. Scientists have tagged this fairly
new phenomenon with several names ranging
from lifeguard lung (LGL), endemic granulomatous pneumonitis, or the more generic
sounding sick building syndrome, which includes a multitude of non-pool related IAQ
problems such as legionnaires disease.
The rise of indoor pools
The prevalence of LGL is probably not disappearing anytime soon, especially with the
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The study showed that childhood asthma
and breathlessness rises around 2 to 3 percent for every indoor pool per 100,000 of
the population across Europe.
In North America, the chloramines issue
came to a head when the national media
reported that the 2007 U.S. National Swimming Championships in Indianapolis, Ind.,
was interrupted after swimmers experienced
Luckily the HVAC industry and its engineers/contactors could answer this problem.
The issue lies generally in poor ventilation
design, chlorine used as a sanitizer and the
trend toward tighter buildings and re-circulating facility air.
The chlorine part of the equation involves
pool water chemistry and not HVAC.
Therefore it's an entirely different topic for
discussion between the pool maintenance
people and facility managers. Lately HVAC
engineers are proving that ventilation design
and/or a new use for a well-established air
purification technology called gas-phase
filtration could be the solution for LGL
and chloramines accumulation.
A developing technology
Prior to the development of modern commercial dehumidification in the 1970s,
indoor pools generally were dehumidified
and ventilated with conventional air conditioning. Since air conditioning typically can’t
handle the high humidity loads produced by
indoor pools, the facilities usually resorted
to outdoor supply and exhaust, which is very
inefficient and costly to operate. However,
exhausting the air does solve chloramines
problems (if the return air ventilation design
draws equally from all parts of the enclo-
sure), but is cost-prohibitive since the same
amount of outside air must be inducted into
the space. In northern climates, this outside
air must be heated most of the year at a great
expense. In southern inherently humid climates, the high relative humidity of outside
air exacerbates the high indoor relative humidity issue and indoor air comfort becomes
a major concern, especially when a facility’s
competitors have similar venues with more
comfortable indoor conditions.
The invention of the modern heat recovery dehumidifier in the mid-1970s dried
these spaces to the optimum 50 percent by
re-circulating the air through large refrigeration coils that condense the water from
the air and return it to the pool. Instead
of the 100-percent outside air strategy of
the supply-and-exhaust methodology, the
heat recovery dehumidifier heats and cools
enough outside air to comply with American
Society of Heating Refrigerating and Air
Conditioning Engineers IAQ standards and
re-circulates the remainder to allow for great
energy savings. Using heat from the refrigeration process compressors, these dehumidifiers typically provide free pool water heating
year-round and offer a cost-effective payback
from energy savings.
Facility Management Journal
Perhaps the best evidence that indoor pools
are creating asthmatic conditions was a
study presented in 2006 by the International
Study of Asthma and Allergies in Childhood and later published in Occupational and
Environmental Medicine. Study participants
were 190,000 teenagers, ages 13 to 14 years
old from 21 countries across Europe. The
teenagers in more affluent countries in Western Europe, where indoor pools number one
per 50,000 people, showed higher incidences
of asthma versus Eastern Europe’s less affluent former Soviet bloc countries where
indoor pools are one per 300,000 people.
difficulty breathing, according to United
Press International (UPI), a provider of
news to international media outlets.
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recent building boom phenomenon of indoor
waterparks, especially in northern climate
states. For example, the small resort town
of Wisconsin Dells has a population of less
than 3,000 people, but includes more than
20 indoor waterparks, many which have been
built since 2000. Wisconsin Dells is an extreme example but indoor waterparks are becoming quite a trend across North America.
While these machines are state-of-the-art
for heating, cooling and dehumidifying the
space for the ultimate in indoor air comfort
and efficiency, mechanical dehumidification
cannot filter out chloramines in the recirculation process. When the developer
of the modern dehumidifier—Dectron
International, Roswell, Ga.—acquired
gas-phase air purification manufacturer,
Circul-Aire in the late 1990s, the long-range
plan was to combine the two technologies,
not only for purifying outdoor air for all
occupied spaces, but also for developing
equipment to eliminate chloramines from
re-circulated indoor swimming pool air.
First use of gas-phase filtration
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November/December 2009
Canada
Thus Chloraguard—the first gas-phase
air purification designed specifically for
indoor pools—was introduced in 2006.
The first Canadian application of gas-phase
air purification for an indoor pool recently
appeared at the Nottawasaga Inn Resort,
Alliston, Ontario, Canada. Director Peter
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Biffis found himself in a similar situation
with all commercial indoor pool operators—
weighing the costs of bringing in additional
outside air versus energy costs.
Nottawasaga is a golf-oriented resort with
a 7,000-square-foot pool area that is part
of its important wintertime drawing card—
the 70,000-square-foot Sports Dome. When
the pool needed to retire its aging dehumidifier, Biffis wanted a replacement that
would bring in more outside air to flush out
chloramines accumulations. Ed Carney, sales
engineer, Kilmer Environmental, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, suggested gas-phase
air purification which had just come on the
market for indoor pools. Thus, the resort
is saving tens of thousands of dollars in the
long-term rather than continually heating
additional outdoor air that would have hopefully purged the space of chloramines, especially during high bather loads on holiday
weekends. More outdoor air also would have
involved costly ductwork modifications rather than the final decision of a simple drop-in
of an identical unit with gas-phase modules
inside the same size encasement. Sustainability also comes into play since Nottawasaga
is using carbon-based gas-phase media that
originates from coconut shells.
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November/December 2009
United States
Most likely the first use of gas-phase air
purification for indoor pools in the U.S.,
the Oaknoll Retirement Residence—an upscale senior living community in Iowa City,
Iowa—wanted to assure chemical pool odors
would never occur in a new therapy pool
area or infiltrate an easily accessible adjacent
124,000-square-foot living area. As one of
the premier retirement communities in the
United States, the premium natatorium
helps separate the facility from the competition while providing very healthy aquatic exercise and therapy experiences to residents.
The responsibility of eliminating pool odors
rested on the shoulders of Timothy Fehr,
mechanical engineer for the project’s architecture/engineering firm, Shive-Hattery, and
mechanical contractor, Bowker Mechanical.
The natatorium ventilation design, which
is a negative pressure concept unique from
positive airflow designs of conventional
buildings, was combined by Fehr with mechanical dehumidification and gas-phase
air purification.
“From the day we opened the facility, we
haven’t had any odor in the residence areas
or in the natatorium,” said William Mishler,
director of buildings and grounds, Oaknoll.
“The HVAC system design is functioning
exactly how the engineer promised it would.”
It’s up to facility designers
and managers to apply these
solutions for the ultimate
in IAQ and to preserve the
health of their occupants.
History of gas-phase filtration
Gas-phase air purification is not a new
technology in itself but it is for indoor pools.
For decades, industries such as paper/pulp
mills, waster water treatment and petrochemical plants have used it to filter out
toxic airborne contaminants that are
inherent in their processes.
More recently, airports have embraced the
technology to filter out jet and vehicle emissions before outdoor air is brought into the
HVAC systems that distribute air conditioning/heating throughout the terminals.
Museums and libraries with antiques, aged
collections or artifacts are also using gasphase in a proven method of preserving
priceless materials.
While many industries are hesitant about
new technology, its track record combined
with rising incidents of LGL is interesting
the indoor pool market.
Indoor waterparks—a greater risk
Due to their enormous size, heavy bather
loads and assorted water features, indoor
waterparks are prone to IAQ problems.
Indoor waterparks are continually getting
larger and range anywhere from 20,000 to
80,000 square feet, especially since the hospitality industry has given this category a
sudden surge of investment capital in the last
five years. In northern climates, indoor waterparks are popular for family outings and
can many times entertain more than 1,000
participants—a heavy bather load for any
pool regardless of how well the water chem-
istry is maintained. Waterparks are more
susceptible to chloramines than conventional
indoor pool facilities because of the amount
of water features that aerosolize the water,
such as waterslides, water cannons, water
umbrellas, wave generators and spas.
Although the indoor waterpark industry
is relatively young, IAQ is one challenge it
must solve in the future. Splash Universe
Water Park Resorts—a Valparaiso, Ind.based resort/waterpark developer—was
one of the first developers in the U.S. to
incorporate gas-phase air purification into
its facilities when it opened waterparks in
Dundee, Mich., and Shipshewana, Ind.
Splash Universe executives chose gas-phase
technology because they were well aware
that chloramines were a past problem for
the industry. They also knew that drawing
families from a larger geographical radius
was dependent on the facilities’ indoor air
comfort and IAQ.
Therefore the two facilities already have
a decidedly fresher and more comfortable
environment that the competition, according
Dennis Rainsberger, chief maintenance
engineer, Splash Universe.
“Poor IAQ has short-term effects when
eyes sting from excessive chloramines and
long-term effects where asthmatic and
other respiratory conditions occur,” said
Rainsberger. “Many waterpark operators
wrongly think IAQ doesn’t affect their
businesses. If the patrons don’t have a
comfortable experience, they don’t come
back regardless of how cosmetically nice
the facility looks.”
The gas-phase air purification adds to the
two facilities’ green missions. The majority
of today’s waterparks exhibit a short-term
outlook for profitability by choosing the less
expensive supply-and-exhaust equipment
instead of mechanical dehumidification.
Splash Universe outlaid a larger upfront capital expense for the heat recovery mechanical
dehumidification equipment, but the sustainability aspects of free pool water heating and
conditioning less outdoor air will pay back
long-run dividends in the range of hundreds
of thousands of dollars over the life of the
equipment. The gas-phase helps keep conditioning additional outdoor air to a minimum
while maintaining an IAQ standard that surpasses most of Splash Universe’s competition.
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Another aspect of gas-phase air purification is
the maintenance. Like all filtration methods,
the media must be changed. However, gasphase media does not show contamination accumulations such as fabric media. Therefore it
must be tested at a laboratory to determine its
continued adsorption capabilities. Depending
on the facility use, gas-phase filtration might
How a variety of
facilities use
gas-phase filtration
Gas-phase air purification has only recently
appeared as an option for eliminating the
gaseous contaminant, chloramines, from
indoor pool facilities. The technology has
been actively used in a variety of industries
for decades.
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November/December 2009
ƒƒMarshall University, Huntington,
W. Va: The new Microarray Core
Facility lab in its new US$48 million
Robert C. Byrd Biotechnology Science
Center uses a self-contained gas-phase
air purification unit to reduce groundlevel ozone levels, which adversely react
with the cyanine dyes used in labeling
need replacement anywhere from every three
months to one year. Typically in a new installation, the media is tested every few months
to determine what replacement interval is
most efficient for that particular facility. After
two or three years, laboratory test engineers
can recommend the replacement interval that
best fits a facility’s usage.
ribonucleic acid (RNA) for microarraybased gene expression profiling studies
and quenches their fluorescent signal.
ƒƒHarrah’s Casino, Lake Tahoe, Nev.:
The Summit View Lounge uses
gas-phase air purification to eliminate cigarette smoke and odors.
ƒƒGeorge Bush Presidential Library
and Museum, College Station, Texas:
Like many museums, this facility uses
gas-phase air purification to minimize
the degradation of collections and
artifacts from harmful contaminants
found in outdoor air as well as harmful chemicals typically produced by
book binding glues, interior paints/
coatings, as well as synthetic building materials and furniture.
Now that LGL has become fairly wellknown, the indoor pool industry has discovered an ailment and identified it. Now
HVAC engineers have solved the challenge
with better ventilation design combined with
gas-phase air purification which has been
a decades-long solution to IAQ problems
in other industries. Now it’s up to facility
designers and managers to apply these solutions for the ultimate in IAQ and to preserve
the health of their occupants. FMJ
Nick Agopian, T.Sc.A., is vice
president of Circul-Aire®—a subsidiary of Dectron Internationale,
Roswell, Ga., a conglomerate
of indoor air quality equipment
manufacturers. He is also chairman of ASHRAE’s Technical
Committee 2.3 for Gaseous Air
Contaminants and Gas Containment Removal Equipment.
For more than 40 years, CirculAire has manufactures gas-phase
air purification equipment for the
wastewater treatment, paper/
pulp, petrochemical and laboratory industries. For more information, visit www.circul-aire.com.
Agopian may be contacted at
[email protected].
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