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Cold Water Wash?

Waxman

Waxman

Super Moderator
I know this topic has been discussed before, but as an update, given high fuel costs, I thought I'd post about it again.

A friend of mine in the car wash business said he's had his production water boiler off all Summer with no adverse effects on IBA cleaning quality. I personally ran my production boiler all Summer and cars came out great like they usually do.

What is everyone doing as far as heating production water in the warm months?
 
Only the soap is heated in my IBAs. It's always been that way and probably always will be. I see no benefit in heating the HP rinse or any other cycles.
 
If I could turn off the hot water to the auto during the hot months I would, but it comes off the same boiler as the self-serve. After the presoak (which is the only thing heated) is mixed with air to foam, it comes out cooler than the surface of the car. I'm sure it's just wasted energy. At some point I plan on using a Paloma for heating only the presoak water, which I'll be able to adjust separately and get it extra hot in the winter months.
 
A solution can come out of benefit/cost analysis.

A. Calculate the energy costs that you would save annually by washing with cold water only.
B. Calculate the additional chemical costs you would incurr annually by washing with cold water only. The notion of cold water washing assumes that you would need to increase the amount chemicals you currently use to maintain the same wash and dry quality.

If A is greater than B, then cold water washing would make sense. Otherwise, it would not.
 
Good advice - it's different with a self-serve because you can't measure the customer's perception of the hot water or lack of it, but it should be "simple" math to figure out on an IBA.
 
I heat my presoak and that is all.

A few years back I had a self serve with a commercial hot water heater that wouldn't go below 140 degrees. I remember trying to see if standard HP soap using really hot water would remove film. Once the car dried the film was still readily visible. Because of that I came to the conclusion that hot rinsing had limited benefit to the cleanliness of the car.

A few years back Coleman was a advocate of using hot water and advertising it. My distributor had a couple of washes. He was heating water to wash cars for a water wizard. It was costing him quite a bit, nearly a dollar a car if I recall. You can double your presoak concentration or boost it for much less than that and I think it will make more of a difference on dirt and film than hot water will. I have no idea how it affects snow and ice removal, though.
 
I do not use a hot rinse at all, ever. During slower times even in the Winter, I shut the boiler down and let the tank heater heat the water for the detergents. I installed Watlo heaters that will go up to 200 deg. I set them at 130-140 deg. When it appears that it will be a busier day and the tank heater won't keep up, on goes the boiler. The boiler is up to temp in about 30 minutes.
 
Greg, was it a Teledyne-Laars boiler? Those require a tank-mounted thermostat to work properly in a car wash or where the temp needs to be under 140?.
 
MEP001 said:
Greg, was it a Teledyne-Laars boiler? Those require a tank-mounted thermostat to work properly in a car wash or where the temp needs to be under 140?.
Click to expand...

It was a standard water heater, I think it was a rheem. I assumed it was for made for restaurants because I think they have to have 140 degree water minimum. It went to a holding tank where it generally cooled down a little, but when it was busy it didn't have time to cool and was quite hot out at the nozzle.
 
Tankless water heaters for heating presoak (HI-PH)? What heat exchanger lifespan are you getting, since copper or brass slowly dissolves away by the presoaks? Thanks
 
I heat the water as it is getting drawn into the soap booster pump. The injectors for the respective soap are then opened and soap is introduced to the hot water stream and then applied to the car through the manifold. The pump never touches the soap mixture.

I use an on demand heater that has the water drawn through it when the soap booster pump comes on and therefore only heats when called for. Very efficient and simple.
 
bmills said:
I heat the water as it is getting drawn into the soap booster pump. The injectors for the respective soap are then opened and soap is introduced to the hot water stream and then applied to the car through the manifold. The pump never touches the soap mixture.

I use an on demand heater that has the water drawn through it when the soap booster pump comes on and therefore only heats when called for. Very efficient and simple.
Click to expand...

That sounds like a great idea. This would probably also overcome the bacteria problem: http://forum.autocareforum.net/showthread.php?p=12162#post12162
 
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