ABINGDON BACK IN THE SWIM

Our Lady’s Abingdon is an independent co-educational Catholic day school in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. Founded in 1860 by the Sisters of Mercy as a convent school for girls, it now caters for boys and girls aged from 3–18. The school boasts a 25m x 8.5m four lane heated indoor swimming pool with a depth range of 0.9m to 2.6m, maintained at a comfortable 30°C all year round. Pupils are encouraged to have swimming lessons from Nursery onwards with the opportunity to play water polo and to enrol on RLSS (Royal Life Saving Society) National Pool Lifeguard Qualification. The pool is also used extensively by external clubs and societies.

The pool plantroom was in need of refurbishment and this was scheduled to take place during the summer holidays. The plantroom was on two separate levels with a mezzanine floor and ladder separating the chemical dosing equipment and filter from the circulation pumps. The space was not being utilised effectively and the Pool Manager wanted the facility upgraded in order to ensure safe operation and a place to be proud of. Together with the School’s Finance Director, he consulted Broadwater.

Broadwater’s engineers decommissioned and removed all of the equipment from the plantroom and installed a new filtration and treatment plant consisting of a filter, pipework & valves, an atg UV disinfection system and new variable speed circulating pumps. Chemical dosing is controlled by a Wallace & Tiernan Ezetrol Touch system with a Granudos G10 feeder, and a chlorine gas alarm is also fitted. But first there was the question of access to the different levels of the plantroom. A contractor was brought in to remove the existing ladder and provide a staircase, creating a safer environment both for the equipment installation work and for the plant operation after completion.

Summary

Mike Bogue, the School’s Pool Manager is very happy. “To say I am pleased with the new plant room is a gross understatement. I am ecstatic to the nth degree”, he says, “John and his team have done an awesome job installing the equipment in an amazingly short period of time. We certainly found the best company to do the job.”