When sizing a chiller, we talk a lot about pool size and daily users. But another key piece of the puzzle is the air temperature around your ice baths, also known as ambient heat.
It's an important factor because the surface of the water is constantly touching this air. If the air is warmer than the water, it's always dumping heat back into your pool.
The bigger the temperature gap between your water and the air, the harder your chiller has to work.
For example, a 5°C ice bath in a 30°C room has a massive 25-degree temperature difference to fight against. That takes a lot of chilling capacity just to hold its ground. On the other hand, a 12°C pool in a 20°C room only has an 8-degree difference to manage, which is much easier.
This effect is magnified by the size of your pool. A bigger pool means a bigger surface area, which means more contact with the warm ambient air and more heat transfer.
Most indoor recovery spaces are air-conditioned to around 23-25°C, but even then, saunas and hot pools can easily add to the heat load. If you're planning to put your ice baths outside, the challenge becomes even greater. An outdoor bath might start the day in 20°C air that climbs to 35°C by the afternoon. That's a highly turbulent heat load.
You have to account for this.
Focusing only on pool volume and user numbers without considering your specific environment is a surefire way to end up with an undersized chiller that struggles.
When we size a chiller for a customer, all of this is taken into account and put into a calculator we built.
That way, there are no surprises when the chiller arrives.
Just constant cold water, day in and day out.