Enhancing Your “Cement Pond” Indoor Pool Room

In the 1960’s TV show The Beverly Hillbillies (CBS, 1962-1971), the character of Jethro Bodine referred to the swimming pool at the mansion as the “cement pond”. So why is a dehumidifier manufacturer bringing back this reference?

In many of our residential pool applications, the pool is often the center piece for entertainment, not actually for swimming. With many of these beautiful pool rooms, the designer may include large sliding glass doors so that the party can easily expand to include an outdoor patio.

From a HVAC viewpoint, the dehumidifier should not be operating when these doors are open as it makes no sense to try and condition Mother Nature. Desert Aire’s ExpertAire Series has a unique feature built in that allows the installer to add a door, movable roof or wall switch to alert the dehumidifier to lock out the compressor when it’s opened.

Jeff Hughes, International Technology Group, our Desert Aire rep in Maryland, provides this feature on almost 75% of his residential applications. This popular low cost feature makes so much sense to the pool owners when they know how it will save them money on utility costs and protect the dehumidifier should the air temperatures drop too low.

This feature is explained in our controller instruction manual (CM3530-Controller-LC-LV-Series). When the door is open, the controller will indicate this on the display (see below) and also pass this status on to Desert Aire AireGuard or a building management system.

The user has the option to configure several responses to the opening of the roof or door. When the controller receives the input that the door is open the system will automatically disable any of the outputs selected from the list below:

• Supply Air Blower
  Desert Aire recommends that the Supply Blower remain active so that air circulation can continue inside the pool room. This will help avoid the development of microclimates in the interior space.
   
• Compressor
  Since the dehumidifier was not sized to dehumidify the outdoors, it is highly recommended to disable the compressor to save energy and protect the system from potential failure.
   
• Auxiliary Air Heater
  The auxiliary heater was not sized to condition the outdoors, so disable this to prevent operation.
   
• Outside Air Ventilation and Exhaust Fan
  Ventilation air is already being introduced via the door, so close the outside air damper and turn off the exhaust fan. Keeping the Exhaust Fan run will promote pulling fresh air in through the open door.

Contact your Desert Aire Rep to discuss the movable roof or wall compressor lockout option for Desert Aire indoor pool dehumidification systems.

Learn more about dehumidification in our blog: How 3 Key Dehumidification Terms Relate.

And read our Technical Bulletin #5 Ventilation Air for Indoor Pools