Canadian pool complex makes major cost savings with Hyprolyser®

A large commercial pool complex in Canada is now on-target to reduce chemical and maintenance costs by $120k CDN, over an 8-year operating cycle, thanks to Gaffey’s Hyprolyser® technology.

Project details

Client YMCA Calgary
Location Calgary
Service Partner Pinnacle Aquatic Group Inc., Canada
System Hyprolyser®
Model Hyprolyser® Standard 560 g/h electrochlorination system

YMCA Calgary is a vibrant charity supporting local communities with many programs and services to help Calgarians connect, build life-long skills, and keep active and healthy.

With six busy aquatics centres in operation, the costs to service and maintain can be costly.  And with a philosophy to prioritise community and wellbeing, it is important to the YMCA that they are employing the very best technologies while keeping costs to a minimum.

At one of the centres, the 15-year-old multi-cell in-line salt chlorination system was due for replacement. To maintain correct chlorination levels, the design of this system requires that salt is added to the pool daily or weekly; salt that is often lost when backwashing pool sand filters. A lot of salt and water are therefore wasted to drain and you need to buy and store more salt to ensure the system is running effectively. An inefficient use of salt and making the system more costly to run.

Not only was the system requiring more frequent maintenance, but the power supply modules for each cell were also obsolete, and with a replacement cost of c.$1000-$1200 CDN per cell, the anticipated total cost over an eight-year planned maintenance programme was round $198,000 CDN, excluding the cost of power supply replacements.

Serving a main pool, children’s pool and a whirlpool, it was important that the replacement system could manage heavy bather loads and, ideally be more sustainable and efficient to run.

With this in mind, Gaffey’s Canadian Distributor, Pinnacle Aquatic Group, introduced their client to Hyprolyser® electrochlorination systems, a technology successfully registered with Canadian PMRA (Pest Management Regulatory Approval) and meeting all of the centre’s needs for clean bathing water.

The YMCA was intrigued by the simplicity of the system and excited to embrace this sustainable, easy to operate and cost-effective solution to pool water disinfection.

Hyprolyser® Standard 560 system was installed to provide up to 13kg w/w chlorine per day of on-site generated sodium hypochlorite solution at <1% strength. This is well below the hazardous categorization level for the storage and production of liquid chlorine.

With the site staff quickly adapting to the Hyprolyser’s® simple routine maintenance tasks, the pool’s management are set to enjoy long-term cost savings and reliable performance, backed by a 5-year limited Hyprolyser® warranty, with a typical 7-9 year electrolyser life expectancy. The Hyprolyser® Standard 560 electrochlorination system continues to perform well and is on-target to create the $120,000 CDN savings over the initial 8-year operation period.

A spokesperson from Pinnacle Aquatic Group commented:

“Hyprolyser® is a very elegant solution in the sense that you’re not transporting dangerous goods or storing them.  There is also less effect on the pH of the water than with other methods of sanitation. If you’re pumping sodium hypochlorite, which has a pH of around 12 or 13, you’re having to administer a balancing agent against it such as muriatic acid or sodium bisulphate to offset the pH raising effect. But when we’re generating a low percentage hypochlorite solution like the Hyprolyser® does, with a much closer to neutral pH, you are reducing your acid consumption thus making savings in other areas also. So, there is tremendous convenience, there’s safety, and of course the green aspect of it.”

“With a plethora of sizes available, there’s no application in our industry that it won’t be suitable for. Whether it’s a hotel or an aquatic centre or water park, you’re set with a Hyprolyser® and they’re tremendously reliable from our experience. They are definitely our preferred solution for pool water sanitation.”

And what does the customer think?

“It was quite remarkable in the sense that it’s not common to install a relatively new piece of machinery that has some degree of complexity to it, and thereafter not receive any further questions or have any potential issues with it for a long time.  It just works and there are no issues or complications, so no need for the customer to get in touch.

We didn’t and still don’t hear a lot from the operators that have them. It was almost unnerving at first, because usually when you install a new controller for example people ask how does it work, how do I do this? How do I do that? What should I adjust? With the Hyprolyser® it’s essentially like you just put it in and walk away. And that’s an amazing achievement for this type of equipment.

We service the units annually with no issues. Everything has components that fail eventually and need replacing, so we follow the service schedule laid out by Gaffey. The operators are able to perform the weekly and monthly checks.

Compared to the previous system, which was a side stream salt chlorination system, you’d always be taking it apart, cleaning the scale from the cells. The power supply boards would also burn out on a regular basis. So our maintenance now is a fraction of what it used to be in comparison.

The customer is enjoying all the plus points, not having to transport or store dangerous chemicals, hazard-free easy operation, less maintenance, the feedback is all very good.”

To find out how much you could benefit from a Hyprolyser® system, contact the team at Gaffey today.

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Contact our team to find out more: email info@gaffeytechnology.com or services@gaffeytechnology.com

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