Cooling at Glen Katherine Primary School

Background

Many schools have installed cooling systems in classrooms. This primary school has tried both refrigerative and evaporative cooling in the school.

Glen Katherine is a typical light timber construction (LTC) primary school located in Melbourne. The school has a mixture of Mod 2, Mod 5 and permanent classrooms. Initially the school installed refrigerative air conditioners in eleven portable classrooms. In the peak of summer, the extra cooling load caused the electrical supply circuits to trip out, requiring a $1000 upgrade to the electricity capacity to those rooms. The remaining 35 rooms, including the library and administration, have since been fitted with evaporative systems.

Objectives

To reduce the cooling load and improve comfort in classrooms.

Actions

A single evaporative system was installed in the centre of each classroom. This provided the best distribution of air throughout the room and meant that ducting was not required.

The installed cost of the evaporative units averaged $2500 per room.

Results

Evaporative cooling has succeeded in halving the non-attendance rate during summer.