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Don Genders Co-founder, Hydrothermal Spa Forum
Hydrothermal areas are one of the most technical and expensive elements in a spa. Yet operators, consultants and designers know the least about them. With this in mind, designers and manufacturers of hydrothermal equipment have set up the Hydrothermal Spa Forum to share some of their knowledge with the wider spa industry
on issues such as the ventilation, design and layout of heat and wet experiences. Co-founded at the 2009 Global Spa Summit by Don Genders, MD of Design for Leisure, and Rolf Longree, MD of Lux Elements, the organisation is still fi nding its feet, but after a meeting this October it has renewed vigor and more certainty of its direction. Genders tells us more.
After the initial formation, the association went quiet for a while, why was this? There have been many legal issues to sort out. Initially, we were going to call ourselves the Global Hydrothermal Spa Standards Association, until we discov- ered that legally this could lead to many problems. If someone adopted our stan- dards and then there was an accident or claim against the property, we could be sued. The professional indemnity policies we looked at to cover ourselves were very costly, so we downgraded the standards element to best practice and eventually came up with the Hydrother- mal Spa Forum as a name.
What is the forum’s main aim? We are an association of industry pro- fessionals, who want to put knowledge into the public domain. We will write guidelines, which interested parties – such as spa consultants, designers and architects – can refer to as consultation documents. Hopefully we will create a library resource of downloadable papers for those designing spa areas.
Why is this organisation needed? We’re setting it up in response to criti- cism of the industry that hydrothermal suppliers are unnecessarily secretive about standard equipment specifi cations and layout. The design of a hydrother- mal area is one of the most technical (and expensive) elements of a spa. It is also an area that consultants, design- ers and operators know the least about.
T e organisation was co-founded at a Global Spa Summit breakout session in 2009 (above)
Unfortunately, when designing high-end spas, which owners want to be bespoke, there isn’t a blueprint for the design of the equipment or the area (see SB10/3 p12). We want to put across the mes- sage that we are not mysterious, that this is a complicated issue, and that we’re willing to make public as much information as we can about how to design an area safely and effectively.
What areas will you advise on? There are many basic design mistakes still being made, because architects generally don’t know how to design hy- drothermal spa areas. They think it’s just a case of drawing a number of boxes and forget that pools and steamrooms need a lot of space for technical equipment. We will highlight some of the common mistakes, such as not putting steam inlets under benches in steamrooms.
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As well as give advice on matters such as how much space needs to be used for getting people hot and how much for getting them cold.
How many members do you have? While we’ve been thrashing out details, it’s just the founder members: Design for Leisure, Lux Elements, Barr and Wray, Haslauer, Klafs and Thermarium. Howev- er, now that we’ve decided on a direction we can start recruiting more members.
Is there a fee for joining? We were going to charge a fee to cover costs. However, this caused legal and VAT issues, so membership is free.
Why should companies join? We are hoping companies will enjoy the opportunity to be part of the forum to take the industry forward. ●
SPA BUSINESS 4 2010 ©Cybertrek 2010
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