Inconsistent heating of the 50m pool at the Olympic Pool Complex is due to aging infrastructure near the end of its natural life.

Council Director Liveable Communities Michele Frey says pool staff are sending out daily emails to regular pool users to let them know what the temperature is each day.

“In this instance with the temperature, we’re dealing with two separate issues.

“Firstly, our local woodchip supplier abruptly stopped supply back in January this year.

“The chip boiler is a very specialised piece of equipment that requires a specific quality of woodchip to operate correctly.

“We have managed to sort another supplier who should be ready to start delivering woodchip soon.”

Ms Frey says the second issue was that due to having no woodchip staff have had to rely on a backup gas boiler to heat the pool.

“This has caused several challenges, the worst being a complete failure of the boiler resulting in a month-long closure of the pool complex.

“Since repairing the gas boiler and getting it back online so we could re-open the pool for our customers we have been plagued with stoppages. We have worked tirelessly to stop this happening however to date we have been unable to identify the cause.”

Until then the daily emails advising of the pool temperature will continue.

Next door to the aging Olympic Pool Complex, the new Kiwa Pools facility is taking shape with steel beams going up.

Kiwa Pools is on target to open in March 2023.

The new facility will be powered by electricity. It has also been designed to take solar panels as funding becomes available.

Kiwa Pools has inbuilt state-of-the-art solutions to create a comfortable climate-controlled environment for all pool users.

“This will both minimise running costs and maximise user comfort both within the water and the pool environment.”

Ms Frey says along with top-of-the-line acoustic treatments, the new pool hall will be dry, relatively quiet and a pleasant temperature.

This massive new facility for Tairāwhiti will have a brand new 50m pool with a moveable floor, a leisure and toddler’s pool, café, a large deck, hydrotherapy pool, event room hire and has been designed to provide good access for people with disabilities.

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