No corrosion despite high humidity and desalinated water

Lanzarote is a very special island. The fascinating volcanic landscape, the year-round mild climate and the roaring Atlantic makes it, despite its size of just 58 kilometres length and 34 kilometres wide, a holiday paradise for tourists from all over the world. Since 1983, Club La Santa in Tinajo,  north-west of the island has welcomed all those who want to combine their passion for sports with their holidays. 

Many professional athletes from all over the world visit the Sport Hotel, as the island‘s climate and resort offerings allow them to work outside all year-round, improving their performance. Due to the success and influx of visitors, the owner decided to expand the resort in 2012. The new part of the hotel consists of 50 two-storey buildings with a total of 96 apartments, a reception building, a restaurant, technical rooms, a sports centre, a conference building as well as two new Olympic swimming pools and two leisure pools. The building services, which include hot water, swimming pool heating, heating and cooling of the apartments, restaurants, reception and conference rooms, have been planned by Elias Casañas and his team, Incanae engineering office. The experts in geothermal energy and energy saving rely on piping systems from aquatherm. For 15 years Casañas and his team have been working with aquatherm products and are convinced of their quality.

Three systems were installed at Club La Santa: aquatherm green pipe for potable water, aquatherm blue pipe for heating and cooling distribution and aquatherm blue pipe ti, a pre-insulated pipe for underground heating and cooling  distribution systems. In total, aquatherm supplied more than eight kilometres of pipes.

“The beauty of this installation was that we were able to use the aquatherm pipes in combination with geothermal and solar  energy,” says Elías Casañas.

The challenge for the engineers was to work with aggressive desalinated water and, as is typical in Lanzarote, a high level of humidity, which in the field of ​​cooling, could have as a result, the formation of condensation on the pipes. These two factors lead to corrosion, especially with metal pipes. However, aquatherm products are made of polypropylene, which does not interact with aggressive waters. The simple installation, in which the pipe and fitting are briefly heated and then joined together, saved a lot of time during assembly.

The plant has been working for six years and the owner, maintenance manager, and project engineers are all very happy with it.

“Products from aquatherm have offered us solutions even in difficult situations. During the installation of the pipes, aquatherm even exceeded our original expectations,” explains Diego Fernández, Maintenance Manager of Club La Santa.

“After six years of operation the aquatherm pipes and valves are like new. There is neither corrosion nor incrustation. That‘s why the circulation pumps consume the same energy as the first day,” says Elías Casañas.