Cold
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8th Street Car Wash
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We close when it gets 20 degrees Fahrenheit or colder. Not as much of the super cold weather here though in Northwest Washington State, and we don't have heated pads, so it becomes a slipping hazard.
Our carwash is in middle Georgia and we are supposed to get down to 18 degrees on Wednesday and several days in the 20's. My biggest concern is the touchless Water Wizard 2.0 It has track heat and has a blow out system, but it will only run if the wash has been used. Don't know if there is a way to make it blow out all the time during cold weather. We don't have doors on the tunnel. We also have 5 self serve bays with weep on the high pressure wand, but not on the anything else. No heat in the equipment room either. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
I would take a hard look at the Water Wizard and see if I could blow out the water and then pump in -30 windshield washer fluid. On your self serve bays disconnect the guns and foam brush handles. Turn off your weep water and pump windshield washer fluid into HP system. For your Foam brush drain your foam brush tank and put a few gallons of washer into the tank and pump it out to the bays until you see blue fluid. In your equipment room you could use a couple of 110 volt space heaters or a more permanent option would be to install a gas wall heater. I have a 220 volt 5000 watt heater. I built a attic years ago and insulated the ceiling well so it doesn't take much to heat the equipment room. I shut down last night and I used about gallons of windshield washer fluid.
Greg Pack
Wash Weenie
Even a couple small $20-25 infrared heater available at walmart will be beneficial and help keep the equipment room above freezing if in a pinch.
I have a water wizard with track heat and no doors. The track heat will allow them to run near freezing but not much below it. I shut them down generally at about 27 degrees.
If your auto bay has wing walls you can make improvised doors for your IBA with tarps. I've done this before when anticipating several day shutdowns. Take eye bolts and mount two low near the floor, and two high up on the wall. Attach bungee cords from the eye bolts to the tarps and tighten as best you can. With the track heat running it will keep the temperature in the bay several degrees warmer than outside. Some people will run a torpedo heater in there also.
The water wizard should blow down the first time it falls below freezing, and then will blowdown three minutes after each wash if another wash is not loaded behind it. You can activate the blowdown manually in the test menu or find the wall thermostat and turn it until you hear it click. After a few minutes the unit will begin to blow down.
The track heat if it was run properly should also have recirculating antifreeze lines run along with the chemical hoses and inside the boom. Test the track heat this weekend to make sure it works properly and the tank is topped off and has no leaks while running. If it continues working properly you will still likely have some lines freeze but it should prevent a hard freeze from damaging your equipment. If you are not worried about getting open early and are patient it will thaw itself out and be ready to go after a warm few hours. If you want it to be ready to wash early you need to flush the lines with antifreeze solution as described above by the SS pros.
DiamondWash
Well-known member
-17 feels like -38 here in Des Moines, Iowa and I too had a customer come in and moved the cones blocking off the automatics then pulled up to the paystation only to find out we were closed then proceeded to call me and ask "Why are we closed???????" are you serious UGH 
designflaw
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How did u pump windshield washer fluid in the system?
Greg Pack
Wash Weenie
The easiest way is to use a flojet pump and build the appropriate fittings to flush the lines. You can also use it to pump the tank out if you don't have a easy way to drain. Any self priming air or electric powered small pump that will produce about 20 psi or more of pressure should work OK.
For high pressure (and low pressure functions that weep)- If your weep systems feeds 1/4" poly hose feeding the pump that can potentially be a good entry point in the system.
For low pressure functions it's often just simpler to pump the regular product out of the tank and put the windshield washer fluid in the system and run the functions.
designflaw
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Thank you!
I have an in-bay automatic. Owned for 5 months now. We close at 0 F. Prior owner said it was too difficult to keep bay warm and initial spay would frost windows making it difficult for drivers to drive on tire sensor.
Side note. We had a blizzard last Friday. winds blew a panel out of overhead roll up door, which cause the whole door to collapse. checking camera I saw temperature had dropped on thermometer located in bay, no camera on actual door. worked until 2am framing up and tarping the door opening. Good Times
Side note. We had a blizzard last Friday. winds blew a panel out of overhead roll up door, which cause the whole door to collapse. checking camera I saw temperature had dropped on thermometer located in bay, no camera on actual door. worked until 2am framing up and tarping the door opening. Good Times
I have one Normally open solenoid valve that controls the weep system. I front of the normally open solenoid valve I have a ball valve, I use the ball valve to turn off the water to the weep system in the summer, when I need to winterize, close the car wash or when I need to do maintenance on the weep system. Downstream of the normally open solenoid valve I have a “T” with a 1/4” ball valve on the down leg of the “T”. When I need to shut down the car wash I connect a air hose to the ball valve on the “T” and blow out the weep system, connect a Flo-jet to the “T” pump in windshield washer fluid into the weep system. I put together a car wash shut down kit that I keep ready to go in a 5 gallon bucket. In that bucket I have a old Flo-Jet pump, hoses and fittings to connect the pump to ball valve on the “T” and a air hose that will reach from the air compressor to the “T”. I keep everything I need in that bucket with the lid on it so I can grab it in a hurry and be done with it. I also keep 5 gallons of -30 windshield washer fluid on hand, it’s sometimes hard to find, I bought it this year in September at Wal-Mart.
