Pneumatic lifting floor
- Illustration: various lifting floor heights
Optimum water depth for all users
The idea is to build a swimming pool, but money is scarce and people are already making their wishes known:
- sports clubs and swimmers want the pool to be 1.80 m deep
- children and their families want to play and bathe at a lower water depth
- a training pool is required with an ideal depth for swimming lessons
- various social services require varying water depths for physical therapy.
Therapeutic care of older people, and of the bodily or mentally handicapped, has come to the forefront recently in connection with the use of swimming pools. Unfortunately, it’s impossible to satisfy all needs by simply building a special pool for each individual requirement. A very good compromise is however achieved by employing height-adjustable intermediate floors – also known as lifting floors. Such floors can be positioned at various pool depths.
Air as the driving motor
Although the purpose of the systems on the market is the same there are, nevertheless, numerous avenues open for adjusting them. In our opinion, the pneumatically adjustable lifting floor is the best alternative. A simple but effective functional principle forms the basis of the design (based on a patent by Professor Schuster, Berlin).
Air is lighter than water and rises from the floor of a swimming pool -and that is what the concept of this lifting floor is all about:
- The floor is operated by blowing air out of jets in the pool floor under the plate, where it collects in caissons and enables the floor to rise and swim on the surface.
- The desired water depth is now set by appropriate supports pneumatically folding down out of the pool walls.
- The air supply for the drive is shut off and the air that has collected escapes through small outlets on the floor top side (these outlets are dimensioned such that less air escapes than is fed in by the jets).
- The floor loses uplift, sinks onto the supports with its dead weight making it secure and immoveable.
An excellent solution
- Lifting floor
The pneumatic lifting floor rests “unchained” as it were in the water - not mechanically connected to the pool in any way. Together with the integrated plastic grating, placed at a distance of approx. 1 m over the full width, the floor offers ideal hygienic conditions, unbeatable by any other system:
- The pool floor and walls can be tiled flat throughout with no protrusions, a feature greatly facilitating cleaning of the floor below the lifting floor plate. A normal commercial, fully automatic suction cleaner is sufficient. This device can be lowered down through the easy-to-open manhole.
- Water flow and water exchange in the pool are vertical – as though the lifting floor doesn’t exist.
8 x 15 cm technology
- Support
These are the dimensions of the GFK supports on which the lifting floor rests – not a great deal of mechanicals to be seen at first glance. They are operated by compressed air. The air jets in the floor of the pool are supplied by a small radial ventilator which generates an over- pressure of approx. 1 bar but doesn’t have a pressure vessel (no regular TÜV inspections required!). The lifting floor is of high-grade GFK composite design with laminated steel straps to achieve maximum rigidity and tensile strength. The floor supports a live load of 2 kN/m2 and is 20 – 60 m in height, depending span width.
The inclusion of the lifting floor doesn’t mean that the structural engineer is confronted with additional work: the pool statics remain unaffected because no deep foundations for the floor nor any additional reinforcements are required.
There is hardly any work involved for the contractor: only the pipes supplied by KÖSTER for the supports and air supply for the floor jets need to be placed in the formwork of the pool walls.
Fewer mechanicals and greater operational reliability
In contrast to other lifting floor systems, our pneumatically adjustable floor requires no complicated mechanical or hydraulic mechanisms, incurring costly maintenance and repairs. In the case of faults in the mechanism under the lifting floor, the pool must be shut down and the water drained off.
Here again, simplicity of design proves the point – a feature also associated with the pneumatic KÖSTER supports; the only part of the complete lifting floor system containing mechanically moved parts. They are of extremely simple design, located in the dry in the basement and easily accessible at all times. The benefits associated with this design are quickly realised, particularly in connection with the cost of upkeep of the pool. All built-in parts – with the exception of the electrical devices – are corrosion and wear-free so that no maintenance is required.
Everything from a single source
- Swimming pool with lifting floor
So now the money has been rubber stamped, the pool built and the pneumatic lifting floor installed.
Before, however, “the plunge can be taken”, final acceptance and hand-over to the operators must take place. The KÖSTER team guarantees on-time completion of the complete plant:
- fitting of the pneumatic system complete with ventilator and valves, including laying of the pipes,
- laying of the electrical lines, fitting the switch cabinet control panel and depth display in the swimming hall,
- lifting floor and support assembly,
- fitting of a swing step (upon request),
- TÜV inspection of the complete plant.
