Why Recovery Rooms Get Chiller Sizing Wrong

Every time an 80kg athlete steps into your 5°C ice bath for 3 minutes, they add heat—a precise, measurable amount, not just a small bump.
Most recovery rooms don’t account for this, which is why their ice baths start out cold but end up lukewarm by midday.

Here’s how it works.
A single 3-minute plunge from an 80kg athlete dumps 555 kJ of heat into a 1000L ice bath.

That raises the water temperature by 0.13°C.
With ten athletes, the increase hits 1.33°C.
Twenty, and it’s 2.66°C warmer.
If they’re coming straight from the sauna, they bring 50% more heat—832 kJ per plunge.

So that crisp 5°C start in the morning could climb to 8°C by afternoon.

Standard chillers aren’t up to the task.
A 1kW unit needs 9.3 minutes to pull out the heat from just one plunge.
When athletes dip in one after another, the system falls behind within the first hour.
And most people don’t stop at one immersion—they do 2-3 per session.
That means one athlete equals 2-3 plunges, and ten athletes equal 20-30.
A facility expecting light use is suddenly handling medium to heavy demand.

If the chiller can’t keep up, the temperature drifts.
Athletes stepping in at 4 PM don’t get the same cold snap as the 7 AM group.
That inconsistency leads straight to complaints and negative reviews.

The solution is to size your system for real-world use.
Here’s what that looks like:

• Light Use (5-10 users/day): 10-30 plunges, 3-5kW cooling capacity, optional sauna integration.
• Medium Use (10-50 users/day): 20-150 plunges, 6-10kW capacity, built to run continuously.
• Heavy Use (50+ users/day): 100-300+ plunges, 6-18kW systems (or multiple units), customised to your setup.

Most facilities pick chillers based only on water volume.
But actual performance depends on more: total daily plunges, multiple immersions per user, sauna crossovers, session timing, and peak hours.
A chiller matched to those factors keeps your target temperature steady all day—no drift, no excuses, no disappointed athletes.

If your system can’t handle the heat, you’re not just losing control of the water temp—you’re risking your reputation.