The replacement of a popular Buckinghamshire gym’s air conditioning systems called for some additional weightlifting, so a mobile crane was drafted in to help install the new condensing units.

Operations manager Sophie Pain says there's an unusual demand on air conditioning for temperature and humidity control as there is no wall between the club’s gym and the 25 metre indoor pool.

“As a result, with the pool water heated to 29’C, we need the air conditioning on all the time to maintain a comfortable 20’C in the gym,” she says.

With its earlier Daikin R410A systems coming to the end of their service life and at the top of David Lloyd’s replacement schedule, the club opted for a straight upgrade to the latest Daikin R410A-based packaged systems for commercial applications. Each of the four 25kW condensing units at Beaconsfield drives a pair of 12.5kW Roundflow cassettes.

Nationwide’s Matt Catchpole says: “An advantage of the chosen solution is that it uses the existing refrigerant pipes linking the indoor and outdoor units. This saved time on the project, so that any inconvenience to the club or its members was minimized.”

Daikin D1+ Partner Nationwide Air Conditioning called in London-based Emerson Crane Hire to lift the old condensing units off the roof and replace them with the new units.

The 40-ton crane, with its telescopic boom at a 28 metre radius, soon had the units in position for the installation team to complete the connections. While this was in progress, Nationwide engineers were also working inside the club to install the new Roundflow cassettes.

Sophie Pain says: “There has been a noticeable improvement in the gym environment since the new units were switched on.”

The outdoor units can connect to a wide range of indoor units and support maximum piping length of 100m and a maximum height difference of 30m. In heating mode, they can operate in outdoor temperatures down to -15oC.

The inverter compressors continuously adjust speed to actual demand so there are fewer power-consuming starts and stops, resulting in lower energy consumption (up to 30%) and more stable temperatures.