Methanol in equipment room?

[Keith Baker]

How many of you store a barrel of methanol at your car wash? I'm thinking of making my own foam brush antifreeze mix this winter, but I've heard for a long time that it's too explosive to keep on site. No one around here seems to want to sell it in smaller quantities than 55 gal.

Has anyone ever had problems doing this? I've never heard of a fire or explosion blamed on methanol, but if anything can happen, it will happen to me.

What about the fire department or insurance company, do they care?

 

[Waxman]

Hmmm. Well, from a practical standpoint, is it any more flammable than other items you may have on site; a small can of gasoline for your weed wacker/snowblower/, etc.?

It seems to me that if you followed a specific safety protocol at the carwash, the flammability of product would not be an issue.

 

[pitzerwm]

I did that once, and of course, was stupid and didn't realize that it was that dangerous. I think that if you keep the cover on and just take out as much as you need to make the "mix" you should be alright. Once it's mixed the flammability would be way down.

 

[Rudy]

Every fall, I get a 55 gal. drum of methanol delivered locally. I add 5 gallons of "brush soap" (formulated for the winter). I pour the soap into the barrel outside the equipment room, and then "dolly" it inside. It's mixed by the time it gets into place. It usually gets me through the winter......No problems.

 

[bigleo48]

Every fall, I get a 55 gal. drum of methanol delivered locally. I add 5 gallons of "brush soap" (formulated for the winter). I pour the soap into the barrel outside the equipment room, and then "dolly" it inside. It's mixed by the time it gets into place. It usually gets me through the winter......No problems.

Rudy,

So what does the soap look like? Do you froth it up with air? I guess it would look a little watery being mostly methanol and that's what concerns me. Mine is very frothy and looks and smells great. If I was to mix it with methanol (even 50/50) people would think it was busted

Big

 

[Waxman]

Is there a certain "%" Methanol to buy for this use or is it standard?

 

[Greg Pack]

Rudy,

So what does the soap look like? Do you froth it up with air? I guess it would look a little watery being mostly methanol and that's what concerns me. Mine is very frothy and looks and smells great. If I was to mix it with methanol (even 50/50) people would think it was busted

Big

Starting with typical foam brush concentrates that work at around 100:1,you should be able to get methanol FB soap to foam up just fine. You use much larger tips for the methanol solution than regular foam brush soap. You would start at no weaker than around 17:1 and work your way down. My only suggestion would be to use a different color than your regular soap, so when you purge it you know the methanol solution has made it through the lines.

 

[Keith Baker]

I know that methanol can be a "foam killer" from using it in the carpet shampoo in the combo vac.

I keep my foam brush liquid to about 20 degrees by using a winter formula product that KO Products sells. And I have signs up saying to try at your own risk under 32 degrees. I don't find very many people wanting to use it when the temperature is below 20. For the most part, they want hot water at high pressure when its that cold.

It is not worth it to me to weep the brushes or keep them liquid to sub zero temperatures for the number of people that may use them.

I found a chart at one time showing the mix ratio of methanol with water to keep the solution from freezing. It might have been on the old forum, or somewher else on the internet. I'll have to figure out if there is any savings over what I'm doing now.

 

[bigleo48]

My other idea was to purge a minute or so after use with Windshield washer fluid for a measure amount of time (like 10 seconds or so) when it gets below a certain temp (from the second output contacts of the weepmiser. So a flojet pump, tubing to the manifold above the bay, check valve, etc and a PLC.

So brushes would weep intermittently with water when it's not too cold. Once temperature drops to the point when it would be weeping constanly, the weepmised second set of contacts would tell the PLC to start it's program. It would purge all the FB hoses with WW fluid. Then when a customer uses the foam brush and then switches to another option, the PLC input would detect it for that bay and after a set period of time purge the line from the overhead manifold to the end of the brush.

This works better than air because the brush head and hair doesn't freeze.

What do you guys think? Big

 

[pitzerwm]

That is what I did, used a PLC to switch and purge the FB lines. Over at the library > Presentations there is a sample.