Systems and the future
Plant room
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A room that houses a building’s electrical panels, pumps, tanks, inverters, batteries or communications equipment. It is the mechanical heart that almost no one sees.
What it solves
It concentrates the equipment for safe maintenance and protects it from sun, rain and flooding. It organizes pipes and cables from a single point.
Today
Design the door so the largest piece of equipment can pass, with a floor sloping to a drain and clear space in front of the panels. Place it above flood level, with ventilation and direct access.
Common mistake
Putting it in a flood-prone basement or a corner without ventilation where no one can replace a piece of equipment.
Tomorrow
With batteries and inverters the plant room becomes a small power station that requires fire separation and good ventilation. Orderly and labeled, it allows a local technician to maintain it without depending on anyone from outside.
Fact Home batteries of 1 to 20 kWh can go in a utility room or outdoors about 90 cm from doors and windows.
Where it comes from
- 1Industrial architecture of diffuse origin, 19th and 20th centuries
Boilers, pumps and electrical panels called for a room of their own, separate from inhabited spaces.
Appears in the routes
See also
Also in Systems and the future
Diagrams and texts by LDB Arquitectura. They are shared under the CC BY 4.0 license, which allows them to be used and adapted with credit to the source.