Equipment Room Dream

[wyatt]

Call me crazy but I am building an 8 bay self serve wash.

It has gotten to the point with the architect that we need to involve the plumbers and design the inside of the equipment room. The city requires everything be drawn up before the building can be approved.

Below is my 1st draft so take it easy on me... What is good and what could be done better? Examples with pictures would make my day.

I'll also attach a site layout and some eye candy of the exterior renderings.

 

[washnshine]

At first blush, I see two bays are drive in, back out - I’m not a huge fan of that layout. I also see one of your bays is uncovered. I’d cover that last bay that is open and that would allow too to get rid of one of your back out bays. Not sure if you have room for the 8th bay on the end, but that would let you get rid of both back out bays. If you don’t have room, I’d go with 7 standard drive through, covered bays.

 

[PEI]

Your architect has designed a very attractive building, but unless this is being built in a tropical location there's not enough thought about controlling freeze. The best solution is a heated and insulated trough. That may be hard to make work with this design. It would need to be routed all the way up at the top of the A to not interfere with the supports. Your trough will need to be painted to match the rest of the roof and will need to have panels on the bottom to access it. This design will also eliminate the ability to use a center boom which will lead to additional time needed untangling hoses.

I would stick with the uncovered Bay since it creates a space for unusual sized vehicles to wash. While I am not a fan of the back out bays, it maximizes the location. Personally, I would use them as detail bays to create a different revenue stream.

In the equipment room I would place trench drains around the outside walls. This way you can easily place all the drain lines without needing to create a trip hazard. With the height of the equipment room, I would elevate all the storage tanks and place all of my storage up off the main floor.

 

[wyatt]

At first blush, I see two bays are drive in, back out - I’m not a huge fan of that layout. I also see one of your bays is uncovered. I’d cover that last bay that is open and that would allow too to get rid of one of your back out bays. Not sure if you have room for the 8th bay on the end, but that would let you get rid of both back out bays. If you don’t have room, I’d go with 7 standard drive through, covered bays.

Trust me, I'm not a huge fan of the layout either. But I have another wash nearby and wish I had more bays. On busy days people won’t wait in line and drive off. My hope is that these pull in back out bays work as overflow bays at peak times. The reason for the uncovered bay is to allow more room for 18 wheelers to make it around the building. The city is requiring all the landscaping or else I would have designed the layout differently. Most truckers that use my other location come at night so most likely the open air bay won’t be occupied when truckers are stacked in there.

What were your thoughts on the equipment room plumbing?

 

[wyatt]

Your architect has designed a very attractive building, but unless this is being built in a tropical location there's not enough thought about controlling freeze. The best solution is a heated and insulated trough. That may be hard to make work with this design. It would need to be routed all the way up at the top of the A to not interfere with the supports. Your trough will need to be painted to match the rest of the roof and will need to have panels on the bottom to access it. This design will also eliminate the ability to use a center boom which will lead to additional time needed untangling hoses.

I would stick with the uncovered Bay since it creates a space for unusual sized vehicles to wash. While I am not a fan of the back out bays, it maximizes the location. Personally, I would use them as detail bays to create a different revenue stream.

In the equipment room I would place trench drains around the outside walls. This way you can easily place all the drain lines without needing to create a trip hazard. With the height of the equipment room, I would elevate all the storage tanks and place all of my storage up off the main floor.

Yeah it's not super cold here. I have open truss washes like this already in the area and haven't had any issues. Our coldest day of the year might only be 5 to 10 degrees. There is a trough and it opens from the top and will be insulated like my other washes.

I'm not following why I wouldn't be able to do a center boom? The trough runs down the middle like normal and the boom will be mounted underneath. (technically I'm planning all the regular car bays to put 2 z booms which aren't centered but same idea under the trough)

I like your idea of drains being on the wall. I hate routing RO lines and flush lines to a center room drain. What storage tank are you referring to? All I can think of would be the RO storage tank?

 

[OurTown]

I would have thought the city would not allow an open bay because it allows rainwater into the sanitary sewer. Are those vac stations on the left side? It is hard to tell with part of the drawing chopped off. Does the layout have good ingress and egress? I can't really comment on the pump room layout, but having a private restroom and a nice little office that a customer could be invited into would be something to consider.

 

[wyatt]

I would have thought the city would not allow an open bay because it allows rainwater into the sanitary sewer. Are those vac stations on the left side? It is hard to tell with part of the drawing chopped off. Does the layout have good ingress and egress? I can't really comment on the pump room layout, but having a private restroom and a nice little office that a customer could be invited into would be something to consider.

I haven't been told no yet... Others in town have them.

 

[Roz]

I like the design. Definitely have a bay without a roof. You may want to add a catwalk for people with larger vehicles can walk along the length of the bay higher off the ground to wash their vehicles.

Make the pits as large and deep as possible so any mud that accumulates does not need to be removed but once a year.

Have bright lights

Have large breaker panels so you do not run out of breaker space in case you want to make later additions.

Use copper pipes if budget permits or schedule 80 instead of schedule 40.

Use vac it up for the meter boxes so money collection is easier.

Good luck. Sounds like an exciting project. Maybe I missed it, where are you located?

 

[PEI]

The tanks I would recommend are an RO storage tank setup off the floor and a RO reject tank setup off the floor. This will allow gravity to feed the RO distribution and allow gravity to feed a rinse water float valve from the reject tank. Install a second float valve lower in the rinse water tank for city water and you can reduce your water usage.

When plumbing in things like the Water Softener, Booster Pump, and RO remember you need a way to bypass them. Also you need lots of cutoff valves so that each piece of equipment can be isolated. The better the isolation the less need to close the entire wash for repairs. This applies to the air as well. Personally I prefer using manifolds that allow me to cutoff water and air to any Bay at a central location. Everything should be clearly labeled so that someone who hasn't been in the equipment room can easily cutoff the correct valve.

You should also consider how the soap lines will run. If you can mount them flat then they will be easier to separate and work on rather than bundling them. Also, I would recommend running polyethylene tubing between where the soap containers and soap injectors will be and just using the more expensive softer hoses at the very ends. This will reduce the portion of hose that has to be changed to just the ends. The polyethylene tubing should last about 10 years before it starts giving you problems.

 

[PEI]

I forgot you also need a toilet and utility sink. The sink should have both cold and hot water. If they require the toilet be handicapped accessible, then just have everything run for the toilet and cap the drain until after you open. Later you can just add the toilet.

Thinking about hot water, you may need to plumb in gas lines for hot water and to heat the equipment room. Five degrees Celsius is on the border line for most soaps. I would recommend trying to keep it at least 10 degrees Celsius in the equipment room.

 

[Greg Pack]

Well, after reading your post more carefully I see you are looking for input on the equipment room, but I will leave my other opinions in here since I had already typed them out..

You need to redesign your equipment room drawing to reflect the trapezoid shape on the architect's drawing.

At this point you need to be working with an equipment rep who can get you various dimensions. Plan for wall standoff behind the equipment so that it can be serviced from the back side. A carefully planned equipment layout looks much nicer and is less intimidating to the prospective purchaser. You can stub up electrical and plumbing if you know where the equipment is and what it needs, etc.

Once you have the equipment dimensions and placed to scale on a proper trapezoid shaped room you can make a plumbing diagram that makes sense. But do the plumbing diagram on a separate sheet of paper.

Definitely recommend a bathroom, and likely required if you plan to have an employee.

Install at least one 4" PVC chase in the floor from one side of the equipment room to the other that you can use to run soft plumbing

RO reject tank needs to be the same size or larger than the storage tank.

Thoughts on the entire site
I'll be honest, I don't care for the layout. I like simple and easy to navigate and would gladly sacrifice the two pull in back out bays for a rectangular shape building.

Any reason you're not doing a IBA? Most 5/1 or 6/1s will outperform an 8 bay SS.

Wouldn't recommend uncovered RV bays in general unless you are at the gateway of some huge rec area like a national park or you see the competitor's RV bays lined up. . You're going to invite a lot of mess from heavy equipment any other problems, and the regular customers won't like them. But after reading your response I see you actually welcome that business.

So are you doing a central vacuum system? . I don't see any vacuum islands