aquatherm black ensures pleasant cooling in new Hospital building – In the AZ Delta Hospital, Campus Rumbeke, the focus should be on people. The new building, which was built in Roeselare–Rumbeke in Belgium, around 100 kilometres from Brussels, is tailored to this premise in all areas.
This begins with the alignment of the patient rooms, which allow a view of the untouched nature of West Flanders, and ends with the division of the hospital areas into clusters for different clinical purposes. To ensure that patients, visitors and employees feel comfortable, a special system is used to provide the building‘s air conditioning.
More than 24,000 square metres and thus three and a half soccer fields–that is the area that was occupied by aquatherm black in the new hospital building. The black grids made of polypropylene ensure pleasant cooling in the warm months–without annoying drafts or dust.- The corrosion-resistant piping system from aquatherm was installed in a metal cassette ceiling in all of the 450 patient rooms; it also provides pleasant cooling in the nurses’ rooms.
“We have been working with the system for many years,” explains Nico Van Opstaele, climate ceiling consultant at Beddeleem.
Among other things, the company specializes in fixed and movable partition walls, suspended ceilings, and the finishing of office buildings and was responsible for the planning and installation of aquatherm black in the AZ Delta Hospital.
“We are particularly impressed by the simple and clean installation, especially when compared to copper or aluminum pipes.”
In order to ensure quick assembly and thus to guarantee that schedules were adhered to on the construction site, the corrosion-resistant aquatherm black grids had already been produced in the main plant of the aquatherm group in Attendorn, so that they only had to be inserted into the metal coffered ceilings.
“The flexibility of aquatherm black is another advantage for the installation,” says Van Opstaele. “Recesses in the piping system–for example ceiling lamps–can be taken into account individually and implemented without any problems. We are also impressed by the ecological aspect.”
The material polypropylene is not only characterized by a long service life, but also by an inherently very good environmental compatibility and recyclability.
In the AZ Delta Hospital six chillers, each with an output of 1,000 KW, are used in combination with heat exchangers to ensure that the water flows through the aquatherm black grid at a temperature of 15 degrees Celsius and effectively cools the patient and nurse rooms. A ventilation system regulates the humidity. The relatively high temperature compared to other cooling systems provides energy savings. In conjunction with a metal cassette ceiling, the grids ensure very good cold distribution.
aquatherm black thus fits perfectly into the sustainability concept of the new hospital, which is designed to make all activities as -energy-efficient as possible. Among other things, the green roofs of the hospital serve as thermal insulation in winter and and a heat shield in summer, a rainwater recovery system protects the valuable resource of water, and LEDs ensure energy-saving lighting. Two combined heat and power plants not only generate energy, but also heat for heating and water heating and thus reduce energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions.
