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.