Anybody Use a Infrared tube heater in your Automatic bay?

[cdreed06]

Anybody use a infrared tube heater in their automatic bay? Ours is getting ice on the top rails and it causes a fault in the machine. Just wondering how a infrared tube heater would work. We have doors and floor heat but on those really cold days it just doesn't cut it. thanks in advance.

 

[pgrzes]

I have a infrared in my equipment room that has a 90 on it goes thru the wall and thru the automatic bay. I just put it together this year. Last year we ran without any heat and had no problems, but I needed somewhere to run heat tube out side so I figured why waste the heat. Every little bit should help that bay.

 

[robert roman]

Infrared heaters are designed to irradiate objects within three-dimensional space and not ambient air or walls or floors.

So it would be ideal for keeping water from freezing on top rails.

For the reasons above, I would not use infrared in mechanical room because it’s not efficient and there is risk of causing fire.

 

[cdreed06]

Ok great just ordered one. Thanks!

 

[Sudsy]

Tube Heat

Ok great just ordered one. Thanks!

We use them in Idaho I cant tell you the specific brand i suspect there all about the same. They go through control boards and igniters till hell won't have it work just adequately in my estimation just to harsh of an environment, unfortunately i have not come up with a better solution. Anything less than the high teens doors freeze with or with out, we have never had a rail issue however

 

[pgrzes]

Be sure to protect any wiring,pvc or vinyl tubing directly under the tube. It puts out a load of heat. If you can put the burner inside it will last forever!! I just wanted to kill multiple heat items in one shot. The tube in the equip. room gets a little warm , but we only keep it set at 50 deg. And only need a little heat in our auto. so it seems to be working well.

 

[Sudsy]

Why didn't i think of that. great idea putting the unit inside the equipment room

 

[soapy]

You can buy all stainless steel units that will last in a car wash bay for a long time. I have some going on 20 years. Farmtec sells units for green houses at some very good prices. 1 75,000 btu unit per Auto bay is good.

 

[Reds]

I have had Ultimate stainless steel radiant tube heaters in both of my automatic bays for 8 years. Only replaced one blower motor in that time. Right now it is 8° outside and my temperature alarms tell me it is 40 to 43° in my bays. Tsats set at 40°. I wash cars all day long in this kind of weather and have no problems with icing. Heaters work hard with the doors going up and down all day, but they keep the bays above freezing temps. The state puts salt brine on the roads and it brings customers in non stop. This is my busiest time of the year. I keep portable backup heaters on hand and ready in case a tube heater breaks down or the power goes out. My temp alarm works on the phone line so it calls me with a power or temp alarm even when the power is out. Even though the bays are above freezing the heat in the bay will not stop the doors from freezing shut. I have to take other measures to counter that.

 

[cdreed06]

Thank you everyone. I ordered the stainless steel model. This is our second winter with the automatic. Our floor heat slabstat was in the slab of the bay that got the automatic with doors. So with that set up last year we had to run the floor heat too high to be able to keep the other bays from freezing. Changed that to 2 thermostats, one in the slab now just turns on the pump and return line fires the boiler. That helped with gas consumption but we didn't realize the effect on the automatic. It was just enough to allow it to form ice on the rails. So with this heater we should be ok again. Thanks everyone.