Car wash floor heating

[Andy Burn]

Good evening,

This forum has been a blessing for me. I bought a gas-station in the summer of the last year which came equipped with a 2 bay car wash. The car wash was abandoned by the owner and in a real bad shape. At one point I wanted to dismantle the car-wash and just include the space in convenience store. I am glad I found this forum and after reading through the valuable advice was able to figure out quite a few kinks in the system. The wash is working well and with the weep mizer system, the last winter was tolerable with a few closures. With the winter approaching this year and the location being in the Ottawa Valley, I need your advice for the heating system.

There is no hot water connection in the equipment room. The water is expensive in this small town and I wanted to run a few options with you:

1. Will it be a good idea to remove the foam brushes (the foam brushes last year used a lot of water through the weep mizer. To further complicate the issue, without the floor being heated, all that water turned to ice.)
2. The car wash floor has the radiant floor piping system installed. I was planning to get an electric hot water tank and make a closed loop system. Has only installed the hydronic system with the hot water tank? Reason for going electric is that there is no natural gas in the town and propane is very expensive as well. I am looking to set up a similar system:

Looking for your valuable advice.

Regards,

Andy

 

[PaulLovesJamie]

Easiest, quickest, and simplest solution for your foam brush is to switch to a winter soap, which basically uses methanol instead of water to dilute the concentrated soap. (Methanol freezes at a much lower temp). Search on "winter foam brush" / "winter FB" & "methanol" for lots of info. More complicated solution would be a purge system.

For the floor heat, I find it hard to believe that electric is cheaper than propane. Per BTU. Yes the electric heater would work, but Im deeply skeptical that it could possibly be cheaper. I imagine you'll be spending quite a bit to heat your floors up there in ottawa, calculate carefully.

 

[mmurra]

For a two bay wash, please consider closing it down in the extreme weather. Most other solutions will cost you a bundle in the end and not recover costs, IMO. If you use floor heat, watch out! If can eat you alive in low volume situations.

 

[mjwalsh]

For a two bay wash, please consider closing it down in the extreme weather. Most other solutions will cost you a bundle in the end and not recover costs, IMO. If you use floor heat, watch out! If can eat you alive in low volume situations.

One of a few caveats that I would say on Mark's suggestion is the bay's concrete will not stay in as pristine of condition depending how severe the weather actually is in the operator's area.