This is why you want to put a solenoid valve on the air inlet of your
Flo-Jet pumps. A run away pump is caused by the failure of the hose on the downstream side of the pump. Since there’s pressure on the pump all the time when the hose fails the pump pumps until there is nothing left in the chemical drum or pail. A few years ago there was a new car wash owner who knew it all and was a “cheapster”. He installed a tire cleaner system and used the ½” vinyl Hydrominder suction hose for the discharge hose off the pump, ½” vinyl Hydrominder suction hose is not a pressure rated hose. After about 2 weeks it grew to about 2” in diameter, I told him he needed to replace the hose, “to busy” was his answer, I had gone there to fix his bill
changer. About a week later it broke on a Sunday morning. He had plugged up the floor drain, because cold air was coming into the equipment room. So once the equipment room was flooded with this beautiful green liquid, that looks like anti-freeze it was coming out of the back
door of the car wash and running into the storm drain in the back lot of the car wash. The Storm drain went out the back lot into a small creek. A customer called 911 because there was anti-freeze coming out of the
door, fire department was dispatched and they see anti-freeze coming out from under the
door of the car wash. They used there chop saw to cut the
door open, the car wash owner had an elaborate stainless locking device on the back
door. The fire department gets into the equipment room and sets off the alarm so they take a fire axe to the alarm panel until the alarm stops. The alarm company notified the owner that there was an intruder alarm and dispatched the police, the owner was about 50 miles away. The fire department secured the
Flo-Jet pump and see an empty 30 gallon drum and what they think is anti-freeze looking stuff running into creek and call the hazmat cleanup crew, the guys in the white suits. The fire department blocked off the creek and the hazmat cleanup crew pumped the green water out of the creek for hours, I don’t know how many tanker truck loads of water the hazmat crew pumped out of the creek but it was a lot. The owner shows up and he is PO’d because they ruined his back
door and smashed in his alarm panel and closed the car wash. When it was all said and done the damages and clean up was right around $45,000. He turned a claim into the insurance company and it was denied, because he had blocked off the floor drain and used a non-rated hose on the discharge of the pump. This is why we used a solenoid valve on the air inlet of your
Flo-Jet pumps. He’s no longer in the car wash business.
