Cooling Large Facilities: How Airius Outperforms Air Conditioning

See what our customers say.

We had a few engineers, architects and potential customers ask us, over the course of summer, for examples of businesses using Airius Air Pear units for cooling.

As Airius has had a great summer providing cooling to a wide range of facilities, we had no trouble offering up examples and answering the question:

How does Airius compare to air conditioning and fans?

Here in Australia, we are still trying to accept that fans can offer a cost-effective methodology for cooling people. Not sure why that is so hard to understand but, for some of us, it is.

As the default position in Australia is air conditioning, and there is nothing wrong with that either, there is a lot of scepticism and disbelief that air movement can offer significant levels of cooling, even in extremely warm, hot, dry or humid environments.

In a nutshell, the science details the critical cooling effect of air movement, even at very high temperatures.

Up to a 4°C cooling effect can be achieved with the use of simple fans at those types of temperatures.

And “simple” is one of the key attributes of Airius fans. They use extremely efficient motors, generally from EBM Papst, within a smart case. Their patented air delivery technology is proven to project air over long distances while using very low amounts of energy, meaning there is not a lot to go wrong.

There is more science too, for example from researchers such as Professor Richard Aynsley, which highlights that at lower temperatures, around 35°C, a 5–6°C cooling effect can be achieved with fans. That is a very good outcome for a low-cost, simple solution and far better than overheating.

In regards to air-conditioned spaces:

Many customers or facility types cannot afford the implementation cost, running cost, or both, of an air conditioning system.

For outside or unenclosed spaces, such as sports stadiums, bus shelters, hotels, bar areas, queues or restaurants, shade is often the only protection from heat. If the outdoor ambient temperature is rising above 30°C, then the only practical solution you have to improve comfort is to utilise a fan and move that air.

Over this summer, Airius has installed products into a broad range of facilities to assist with or improve cooling. You can also see below what some of our customers said.

Sports halls

Sports halls and gymnasiums have been one of the most popular applications for Airius technology for cooling this summer.

Offering a range of cost, operational and maintenance benefits when compared with both air conditioning and large bladed fans, numerous facilities from Queensland down to Victoria and across to Western Australia have experienced the value and benefits of Airius fans.

School sports halls, sports facilities used by PCYC and YMCA, and gymnasiums such as Virgin Gyms at Barangaroo in Sydney, have successfully installed Airius units.

Take a look at what Matt Jepson, Facilities Manager from Pittwater House School in Sydney, had to say.

Why they chose Airius after looking at several alternative systems

How easy was Airius to install?

And here is what Peter, the Facilities Manager at Green Point Christian College on the Central Coast of NSW, had to say about using Airius fans in his sports hall.

Why Airius won their business over fans and air conditioners

As you can see, clients often wanted to install air conditioning, but the upfront costs were prohibitive, as were the running costs.

Having improved thermal comfort in summer is better than having no thermal comfort.

Over the next few months, some Queensland state schools and larger basketball associations will be installing Airius units to cool their halls too.

Let’s look at the initial upfront cost benefits.

Mechanical engineers indicate that for a sports hall, to achieve an effective cooling design, around $450 per square metre may be required to install a ducted air conditioning system.

There may be cheaper air conditioning options, but will they work in an 8-metre-high space? Air conditioning tall and large spaces also creates a range of air distribution issues that can be difficult to overcome.

Let’s also not forget the running costs. They can be very expensive for a school hall or large space. Remember, you are chilling a very large amount of air and also having to effectively distribute that air. That requires significant air conditioning fan size, power and energy use.

If you take a typical single-court basketball hall of 650 square metres, based upon $450 per square metre to air condition, that will cost around $300,000 upfront.

Plus, will that make everyone comfortable? We know from our previous blogs that not everyone is comfortable in an air-conditioned space. That is a separate issue and one for another upcoming blog.

If you consider an Airius solution for an 8-metre-high sports or assembly hall, the cost will generally be somewhere between $12,000 and $25,000 including installation.

The total running cost can be between 25–40 cents per hour on average. That is not a lot of cost over a year and much less than an air conditioning system running over a 12-month period.

As you can see, significant upfront and running cost savings are achieved by these customers who are using fans, especially with all the other benefits such as:

• No ductwork.
• No rooftop plant.
• No strobing requiring lighting redesign.
• No ongoing costly maintenance programmes.
• No risk from basketball damage.
• No roofing structural reinforcing.
• No cages.
• Portability.
• Significantly less redundancy compared with large bladed fans.
• Dynamic internal environment.
• Plug-and-play solution with no commissioning required.

Effective Cooling Solutions for Sports Halls and Gymnasiums

This summer has seen a large surge in the use of Airius Air Pears for cooling in different types of warehouses and manufacturing facilities.

Lush Cosmetics, for example, has a large warehouse and manufacturing facility in western Sydney. After trialling Airius units last summer in a smaller area of its warehouse, this summer it ordered over 130 Airius units to provide the cooling air movement so needed in these types of facilities.

One of the key benefits Airius units offer facilities like this is the ability to move air for cooling down between racks and shelving. Typical large bladed fans move air over the top of shelving, but Airius units can get the air down to where workers are.

Airius units also have no negative impact on overhead cranes, as they can be mounted above those cranes.

Light strobing is not an issue using Airius fans. As they are directional, they can be placed in locations not normally considered for fans and direct air to where it is needed. That may be an optimum location or somewhere out of the way, while still being able to push air to areas of demand and cooling requirements.

That flexibility, on top of locating the units across the roof like a normal fan, or on the walls if required, means Airius units can be utilised in all sorts of facilities for cooling.

As well as Lush, storage facilities, TYCO, DHL, printers and manufacturing plants have all utilised the Airius cooling solution this year.

Car showrooms

Car showrooms are a large user of Airius units overseas, and now in Australia. This summer has seen car showrooms such as BMW, Toyota, Honda and Skoda utilise Airius systems.

In these instances, Airius units were implemented in conjunction with air conditioning, primarily to help circulate cooling air and ensure destratification to provide heating savings in the cooler months.

Once again, improving comfort and saving energy.

Indoor pools

Quite a few indoor pools have installed Airius systems over the last six months to either circulate air around the space to reduce condensation and improve summer comfort on the concourse, or to reduce winter heating energy use.

For example, Toowoomba Grammar School in Queensland utilises Airius units to do both in its indoor pool and also uses Airius units to provide cooling air movement in its new sports hall.

Councils

There is now strong interest from councils in utilising Airius units in their public facilities, such as function centres, workshops and foyer areas, just to name a few.

Moonee Valley Council in Melbourne has utilised some of the mid-size Airius units to offer air circulation in summer in one of its halls used by elderly inhabitants for a range of events, while also reducing winter heating bills through effective destratification.

Government facilities

The National Archives building in Sydney recently installed Airius units in its facility.

Its application was to use air circulated by Airius fans to offer moisture and condensation removal in the plant room. This was combined with the use of the unique PHI Cell, fitted inside Airius Air Pear units, to help address mould in that area.

That has worked very well and was a simple installation too.

TAFE

TAFE has recently installed Airius Air Pears for cooling workshop areas in the new Bohle TAFE in Townsville, North Queensland.

Using Model 25 Air Pears at 4 metres high, the non-turbulent airflow from the Airius units helps minimise woodworking dust in the workshop zone.

Combined with the ability to locate the units away from the work zones, due to their ability to push air over a distance, the Airius units provide a simple, low-cost cooling solution. And Townsville certainly gets hot.

In summary

Airius has a unique ability to offer measurable summer cooling benefits and winter heating benefits, improving thermal comfort across all seasons. Additionally, proven and significant energy savings can be achieved in both winter and summer in air-conditioned or heated spaces.

All sorts of buildings are benefiting from Airius cooling in Australia, from offices, classrooms, foyers, theatres and libraries to prisons and more. The opportunities are everywhere.

Now we are moving into winter, we can use our next few blog articles to discuss the value of implementing destratification to push warm air in winter back to the floor.