Going for Gold in Jordan

In August 1965, Joe Gold opened his first gym in Venice Beach, California, USA, long before the modern day health club ever existed.

It quickly established itself as the ‘mecca’ for health, fitness and bodybuilding, and soon boasted a ‘blue chip’ customer base that included the likes of Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Now, nearly 60 years later, Gold’s Gym operates globally in around 30 countries and is established as the largest franchised gym network in the world.

One of the most recent additions to that network is their new health and fitness club in Amman, Jordan, which when opened, was the largest Gold’s Gym in the world.

This 14,000 sqm facility is spread over 6 floors and in addition to the usual health and fitness facilities – including exercise studios, kids fitness clubs, cycling facilities, mind and body wellbeing, plus an outdoor boxing gym – one of its ‘star attractions’ is undoubtedly the four half Olympic-sized swimming pools contained within the facility.

With an outdoor pool measuring 12.5 x 25 metres, plus a further similar sized indoor pool, the benefits of swimming for fitness and leisure is at the heart of the Gold’s Gym offering.

The pools were built by Aqua Sport for Swimming Pools, (ASFSP), one of the leading pool designers and builders in Jordan.

Heating such large bodies of water was a prime concern for ASFSP’s design team, as outside temperatures early and late in the year can be very cool in Amman, so the company turned to Bowman to advise on the most suitable heat exchangers.

Three Bowman FC100-5114-2S stainless steel heat exchangers were specified for each pool, to ensure the required water temperature was achieved quickly and maintained at all times.

The FC100-5114-2 is the largest Bowman swimming pool heat exchanger to feature composite end covers, enabling the unit to be installed directly into pool pipework via solvent weld connectors. It features an integral thermostat pocket and is available with either cupronickel, stainless steel, or titanium tube cores.

A single FC100-5114-2 unit is suitable for pools up to 180 m³, and can transfer 98 kW of heat energy from 82 °C boiler water, based on a flow rate of 350 l/min at 28 °C.

Routine maintenance is simple, and with three units installed per pool, individual heat exchangers can be easily isolated and removed for cleaning, without having to shut the pool down. Something that would not be possible with other types of units, such as plate and gasket heat exchangers.

Since opening the new health and fitness club, Aqua Sport for Swimming Pools report that the Bowman units have been operating efficiently and reliably, helping the swimming pools to maintain their ‘star attraction’ status!