At Arbor Road Estate (https://www.arborestate.co.in ) we had a clear vision for this project. An eco sensitive luxury resort.
One of the guests made a remark “how is this place so cool without any AC?”
A key challenge was to achieve an acceptable indoor temperature while cooling wthout air-conditioners. In the first summer we could achieve a floor temperature of 26-28 ℃ even in the peak summer heat of 45 ℃.
We took a two-step approach to overcome this challenge.
The first was the building envelope. Passive solar architecture, cavity walls, double glazed windows and insulation were all deployed to ensure the buildings are naturally well lit and yet, are reasonably insulated from the weather.
The second step would involve deployment of active cooling systems. We used large ducted swamp coolers located at the roof level to bring in cool, fresh air into cottages.
However, simply cooling the air is not enough so we augmented this with an under-floor radiant cooling system. The concrete and stone floor has much higher specific heat than air and cools the volume more effectively. Pipes to carry chilled water were laid below the finished floor in the buildings. About 3 KM of pipes were laid in all, across 600 sq metres of floor area. The water circulating through these under-floor pipes is chilled by an evaporative cooling heat exchanger.
The following are clear benefits of such a cooling system:
· Indoor air quality is much higher than that of an airconditioned building.
· Power savings – an estimated 70%.
· Lower contracted power load.
· Low back-up power needs. As the concrete floor retains temperatures longer, the thermal comfort inside buildings is not compromised during short power outages, and therefore, does not need to be hooked up to back-up power.
We have been continuously studying the various parameters, experimenting, and tinkering with the system to enhance the cooling (the village lads, farmhands, have by now become defacto engineers!). The modifications planned in the near future should, hopefully, bring down the indoor temperatures even lower in the coming summer.
Recently Luxlife, a UK based company awarded us the Best Eco-Conscious Luxury Resort 2024, Telangana (https://lux-life.digital/winners/arbor-road-estate/). This is extremely encouraging and keeps us going!
Stay tuned to learn about more such green initiatives and various aspects of our experience in creating a luxury boutique resort that is passionately sustainable!
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