Copper-Fin2® Pool Heaters Help World’s Top Swimmers Compete

Case Studies

by Lochinvar Marketing Department | 06/21/2021

Project:

Two Lochinvar Copper-Fin2® Commercial Pool Heaters were center stage for a 12-day swimming competition in Omaha, Neb., this June. Spear Corporation in Roachdale, Ind., tapped Lochinvar to supply the critical pool heating equipment to ensure top athletes could perform in optimal conditions. Set up directly on top of the basketball court in the facility’s main arena, the two pools – a warm-up pool and a competition pool – totaled more than 1.8 million gallons of water. In less than two-weeks, Spear Corporation needed to set up the heaters and ensure the pools were ready for the event. 

Location:

CHI Health Center Omaha 

Omaha, Nebraska 

Lochinvar Products:

● Two, 2 million BTU/hr Copper-Fin2® Commercial Pool Heaters

About

CHI Health Center Omaha is an arena and convention center located in the North Downtown neighborhood of Omaha, Neb. Operated by the Metropolitan Entertainment & Convention Authority (MECA), the 1.1-million-square-foot facility has an 18,975-seat arena, a 194,000-square-foot exhibition hall and a 62,000-square-foot area for meeting space. First opened in 2003, the arena hosts basketball and hockey games, professional wrestling events, concerts, and other large conventions. The arena's primary tenant is the Creighton University men's basketball team. 

Postponed due to COVID-19, the swimming trials eventually converged at CHI Health Center in two waves, June 4-7 and June 13-20. Hundreds of swimmers participated in Wave 1, followed by more than 500 in Wave 2.

USA Swimming and Omaha Sports Commission enlisted the support of Spear Corporation, the leading commercial swimming pool firm in the Midwest. For more than 37 years, this family-owned and operated company has specialized in providing mechanical and plumbing solutions for aquatic facilities around the country. Along with a full-service department, the company offers swimming pool/spray ground design, construction and mechanical room renovation.

When presented with this opportunity, Spear Corporation relied on Lochinvar, its partner of more than 30 years, to provide the ideal pool heating solutions for this particular event. 

“The ease of working with a Lochinvar system was critical to give us superior control and reliability – both extremely important for an event of this magnitude,” said Brian Spear, president of Spear Corporation. “We have worked with the company for decades and knew they were the perfect fit for this job.” 

Challenge

Many factors play into a project of this size and significance. Erecting state-of-the-art competition pools on top of a basketball court is a challenge in itself and one that requires immense attention to detail. Spear Corporation worked in conjunction with Myrtha Pools, who created the actual set-up, handled waterproofing and other details to ensure the facility was ready for primetime. Spear Corporation was tasked with handling all mechanical and plumbing solutions to ensure an ideal pool temperature, an essential component to any swimming competition.

With a tight turnaround, the build would need to be completed in less than two weeks. Once the mechanical systems were set up and optimized, the pool would need to be heated in 72 hours to ensure temperatures between 79 and 80 degrees before hundreds of swimmers showed up to put it to the test.

“For an event of this size, failure isn’t an option, and that’s why we turned to Lochinvar,” Spear said. “We had 72 hours to heat more than 1.8 million gallons of water from 65 to 80 degrees – a very involved process – and we knew the Lochinvar systems could make that possible.” 

With a short timeframe and significant challenges, the systems needed to be simple to install, easy to get started, and dependable throughout the event. 

Solution
Two Copper-Fin2® Commercial Pool Heaters were used to heat the competition pool, and then both were moved to the warm-up pool. Once both pools were heated to 79 or 80 degrees, Spear’s team placed one Copper-Fin2 at each pool to maintain the ideal temperature.

Spear commented on how much he values the reliability of the Copper-Fin2® product line. 

“We have worked with these heaters for years, and they have always been dependable,” Spear said. “For an event this size, we needed that peace of mind from start to finish.  

The pool building process began mid-May with Myrtha Pools designing and assembling the pools, followed by the installation of the pool heating system by Spear Corporation. 

“This is a unique job for many reasons. We are plumbing the heaters so we can run two of them simultaneously to get the initial heat-up on each pool before assigning one heater to each pool for maintenance,” Spear said. “We knew the Lochinvar product would provide flexibility and ease of installation, making this process simple and straightforward.”

The two Copper-Fin2 heaters will heat the pools for both waves, making them essential to the swimmers’ success and the event as a whole. 

The Copper-Fin2 units also feature SMART SYSTEM™ operating controls, which help simplify troubleshooting and maintenance. Spear finds it useful that the unit shows a data code on its LCD display that corresponds with a specific error, so problems can be identified – and fixed – as quickly as possible. 

 Results

Spear commented on the success of working with Lochinvar systems. 

“Spear Corporation has been working with Lochinvar for more than 30 years, and we know the products and service are superior,” Spear said. “For a project of this caliber, they were exactly the right partner to work with.”