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Heating Presoak?

OCSJOHN

OCSJOHN

Dual Bay Auto in NC
I'm trying to decide if I should start heating my presoak for my Washworld HV. I'm located in a fairly mild climate (lowest temp in winter in 30's). I've been in business for about two years and when I built my dist. told me that with modern chemicals, it didn't matter if they were cold or hot when they went on the car. However, I've tried several different chemical setups and still haven't found anything that cleans really great in the winter. My car is white so I can really tell if it leaves it dirty and when I washed my car this morning I finally decided that I've got to do something...

Do most of you heat your presoak in your auto bays?

Have you found that it makes a big difference in how you clean cars?
 
I heat my presoak by mixing the concentrate with hot water and leaving the mix at a low level. That way the beginning of the presoak is cold/cool, but will heat up as it refills.

I'm not certain if it cleans any better, both my self serve and auto pull from the same tank for presoak. I do know customers at least feel better when they are grabbing a warm hose and washing their car. In the automatic the customer wouldn't be able to tell if it's hot or cold (unless it cleans better?). Maybe hot presoak makes the smell of the soap more noticeable?
 
We heat up our presoak- 115' We apply a 2 step high ph only. 3-4 oz per car. First pass is strong, second pass is weak. Dwell time is 1 minute 15 sec's. We use Turtle Wax HP 03/5. Operate an Oasis XP
Guaranteed Clean
 
Just spoke with my chemical supplier, he said anytime you can utilize hot water anything will clean better.
 
Whats the best method for heating just the presoak on a Washworld or a Laser? I've read some posts that said to use a tankless and some said just to use the biggest residential hot water heater you could find. I need to go out sometime and figure out exactly how much water I am using on presoak per car.

I can see how plumbing it would be real easy, but I wonder if a heavy duty residential hot water heater could keep up with demand for two autos.
 
Hot PreSoak

My laser's procon pump is directly plumbed to hot water line. You can set your heater at high scading capable temperature to ensure presoak is over 100 degrees by the time it arrives onto vehicle surface. Be extremely careful if you use water from the same source for other use...

I'd heard of a small electric tankless water heater used for this purpose...It should work just fine if you don't have a water heater in the equipment room now.
 
OCSJOHN said:
Anyone have a rough idea of how many GPM a low pressure presoak pump on a laser or washworld hv is pumping? Thanks in advance, John
Click to expand...

At 175psi, an .086 injector (lp soap or wax) will flow about 2.5 gpm. An .057 injector will flow about 1.25 gpm. To be safe and try not to run out of hot water, I'd size the heater to flow 4-5 gpm.
 
jcollins said:
At 175psi, an .086 injector (lp soap or wax) will flow about 2.5 gpm. An .057 injector will flow about 1.25 gpm. To be safe and try not to run out of hot water, I'd size the heater to flow 4-5 gpm.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info. Since I don't have natural gas to my site, I'm thinking of getting two (one for each machine) electric tankless water heaters. Here is a link to the ones that I am leaning towards:

http://www.titanheater.com/proddetail.php?prod=Tempra-36

Tell me what you think? I found where I can get them for about $650 each and with plumbing and electrical and doing what I can myself I think I can get the whole project done for around $2k. Do yall think the difference in cleaning would be improved enough to justify it? Thanks!
 
I definitely think that heated, soft water makes the chemicals work best, resulting in cleaner cars, happier customers, more business and a higher net profit.
 
Waxman said:
I definitely think that heated, soft water makes the chemicals work best, resulting in cleaner cars, happier customers, more business and a higher net profit.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the reply Waxman. By the way, saw the post about your 700, hope they get everything straightened out today so you can get back to enjoying your trip. I go out to Vegas every fall for a guys weekend and without fail, no matter how much prior planning takes place on my part, some unexpected problem will surface while I am gone. It really is a pain in the ass to try and get something diagnosed and fixed from a hotel room 2000 miles away.
 
Waxman said:
Yes it is!

Definitely you want to heat your presoak! You may even use less soap as a result!
Click to expand...

Yea I've decided to go ahead and do it. I'm ordering the heaters today and hopefully will get it done in the next week or so. I just hope these tankless heaters really can heat like they say they can on their site. I'll probably rig one up myself and test it to make sure before I mount them on the wall and get an electrician out there.
 
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