The $20K Mistake Most Recovery Rooms Make When Sizing Chillers

Most people size their chiller for the pools they’re running right now.

That’s a recipe for a very expensive mistake.

I had a call from a recovery room owner in Adelaide last month. He had two 1,500L pools and was looking for a chiller sized for those pools and about 10 plunges per hour.

But he’s planning to add two more pools by next year, thinking the chiller he wants to purchase can handle the extra load.

It won’t.

Why Chillers Can’t Just “Scale Up”

A chiller’s capacity is measured in kilowatts (kW)—how much heat it can remove at once. That number is fixed when you buy it.

Right now, his setup handles 10 plunges per hour across two pools. That’s about 5.5kW of heat from bathers, plus ambient air and sauna use. His 7kW chiller manages it.

Add two more pools, and he’s looking at 20 plunges per hour. That’s 11kW of heat—way beyond his chiller’s capacity. His water will creep up near 10°C instead of staying at 5°C.

It’s like using a small air conditioner to cool one room, then expecting it to cool the whole house.

It just won’t be able to.

The Cost of Undersizing

When your chiller can’t keep up, you don’t just get warm pools. You get a full system overhaul:

• New chiller
• New plumbing and electrical
• Downtime: Lost clients and revenue

That’s thousands to fix a problem a slightly more expensive bigger chiller could’ve prevented.

How to Size for the Future

Size your chiller for the maximum plunges per hour you’ll have in 18-24 months, not today’s load.

Planning two pools but might add two more?

Size for 6,000L and 20 plunges per hour from the start.

Expecting 10 plunges per hour but could hit 20?

Size for 20.

If you want a breakdown on sizing, you can use this calculator or read this other newsletter.

Get a chiller with enough kW to handle that, plus headroom for efficiency.

And as for the Adelaide owner, we showed him how to size for 20 plunges per hour now.

Saved him thousands in future headaches.