Trench Drains

[carwash11147]

I'm in the process of building a 3 bay SS wash and looking for ideas and recommendations for trench drains. Right now I'm leaning towards a 8" trench drain leading to a catch basin in each bay with a separate lead out to the sewer, but open to suggestions. Help?

 

[Earl Weiss]

Are you looking to run the trench drain the width of the bay in the center? I would look at other locations and see what they do for ideas. I have seen older locations here with trench drains running the width. They must have stoped for a reason.

One of the best Idea I heard of (Don't know if it worked.) Was a center pit with end wall sloped so a skid steer could be driven down the slope to clean the pit. Don't know what the minimum width would need to be or max angle of the slope for it to work.

 

[pgrzes]

We have both pits and trench's. We hate cleaning the trench's. We have an old clambshell pit digger that we use for the pits and its much easier and faster to do the 4 pits then it is to do the 3 trench's.

 

[carwash11147]

My current 4 bay ss has pits that are about 40" by 72" and 48" deep. We clean them twice a year and it is very time consuming, messy, and ties up each bay for an hour or so. The new wash will have an attendant 7 days a week so taking a few minutes each day to shovel out trenches wouldn't be an issue. Just figure there has to be something better then pits for a wash.

 

[2Biz]

I think I have what you are talking about. The trenches in my bays are 11' long x 16" wide with a dam 8' from one end. They run length wise in the bays. 8' of the trench is where the mud collects. The water flows over the dam and collects in the 3' section. The drain is in the wall about 12" up from the bottom with a PVC Elbo to keep mud from going down the drain. Here is a picture I took when it got to 16° below zero. I covered the grate with holes in it to keep the pit from freezing. The 3' grate over the drain pit is solid to keep mud out. The dam is right under where the two grates come together. The 8' section of grate has about (100) 1" holes drilled in it for water to get into the pit. Pretty old school...But works. I shovel them out about every 2-3 weeks. Get about 50 gallons of mud with 4 bays. I have some better pictures and post later.

 

[2Biz]

Here ya go....

 

[Jeff_L]

I use my vac trailer to clean out those types of pits.

 

[mac]

If you do trenches, be sure to have them run as 2biz shows. I knew of some places that had one trench running width wise with one big pit in the equipment room. In two of the cases someone dumped gasoline in the pit/trench, and the places went up in flames. Yes, that's not common, but why allow the chance?

 

[2Biz]

If I were to build a new wash based on what I've learned, I'd definitely make changes. But I don't know about the pits. It only takes me 45 minutes to shovel the pits every two to three weeks. So that's not bad. I don't have to hire it done which is what I'd have to do if I had deeper pits.

Jeff_L.....I wished I had a vac trailer! Sure would give my back a break. How does that work in the winter? You ever have problems with the pump or anything on the trailer freezing up?

 

[Randy]

Our pits/trenches run across the bay at the center of the bay with the floor sloped towards the pit. They are about 16” deep and about 14’ wide. We have a “T” on every bay to keep any floating debris from going to the next bay or into the oil/water separator tanks. There is a 4” pipe that goes under the equipment room floor. Because we get a lot of mud we clean the pits every Thursday before the garbage truck comes. It takes about 15 minutes to do all the bays.

 

[MEP001]

I've been to a wash that had drains in the bays all going to a central pit. There was a catch bucket under each drain cover that caught almost all the dirt. He had me look after it for a while, and when I did I made a couple rods with hooks on the ends to dump the buckets out, then I'd cart that to the dumpster. It took about five minutes once a week to clean them, and in the eight years he owned it he never had to clean the main pit.

 

[Jeff_L]

Jeff_L.....I wished I had a vac trailer! Sure would give my back a break. How does that work in the winter? You ever have problems with the pump or anything on the trailer freezing up?

I don't use it when it's below freezing. Would hate to freeze something up. It's not as easy as it seems, that suction is strong and you feel like you wrestled a bear at the end of the day.

 

[carwash11147]

Thanks for the help 2biz. That looks like a simple, cost effective design that works.

Here ya go....