water wizard 2.0 freeze blowdown

[JoelM]

Cold weather hit us hard last week and water wizard did it's job of blowing out all of the nozzles in the gantry but did not blow down the wheel brush hp lines. Both busted and had to be replaced. Should the water wizard blow these down as well or did JCC retrofit these brushes without regard to freeze blowdown?

If it was overlooked at the factory, can it be programmed to blowout when it does its freeze blowdown?

Also, does anyone have any suggestions to protect hoses from wall to gantry? Heat trace? etc?

Thanks in advance.

Joel

 

[Reds]

I have doors and radiant (tube ) heat in my automatic bays. 2 WW, one with wheel scrubber have never froze up. Only issue is trying to keep water out of door cylinders.

 

[Waxman]

If I were protecting an HP hose from the equip. room to the gantry, I'd put a heater tape on it and wrap it in some thick foam pipe insulation. Maybe even cable tie and tape it up good.

 

[Shorco1]

If I were protecting an HP hose from the equip. room to the gantry, I'd put a heater tape on it and wrap it in some thick foam pipe insulation. Maybe even cable tie and tape it up good.

Wax, I believe Joel was referring to the blow down of the wheel brush HP line on the gantry. I think he's covered with the blow down of the gantry. Why would he want to heat tape the line from the equipment room to the gantry? My HubScrub is auto taken out of the service as the temp drops to 34 due to possible ice build up on HubSrub. I am curious how JC handles the ice issue. Keep us informed Joel.

 

[Waxman]

Well, if a hose from equip. room to gantry is icing, why not heat tape and wrap in foam insulation? Maybe I misunderstand the problem.

I think of my hp hose for underbody; comes out of pump room, along bay floor a short run then to pipe in the floor. If that were icing, I'd try and keep it warm somehow I guess.

 

[mr-gte]

Installing automatic's without doors and heat is simply not a good idea.
I don't understand why one would elect not to.... Please enlighten me on why this is not a requirement in cool/winter climate ?
How do distributor's advise a new automatic owner ?
Be careful when making these type of decisions.
Ask the experts
Distributors have installed some machines in my area without doors and heat.
Or just doors only,some don't have a Dryer
Today its 9 degrees with a 10 mile an hour wind.
Good luck with your car count today.
Car count pays the bills
One Selling point for me is not to working in a 17 degree bay with wind blowing 25 miles an hour.Mean while running a portable heater to thaw out machine to work on it.

 

[Randy]

We just went through the same cold snap as Joel did in St. Helens Oregon. There aren?t many inbay automatics that have doors on them up here, no one has floor heat. There just isn?t the need with the short cold periods that we get. This last one could be it for the winter now. Most car washes shut down when we get a prolonged cold spell, pump freeze into the systems and turn off the power. It?s to dangerous and there aren?t a lot of customers who will brave the cold to wash her because they know that in a few days it will be warming up.

 

[trentu]

I am in OK and we have don't use doors as they are a pain in the a$$ compared to the 4 to 6 days a year we may have to shut down. Pretty much everyone is the same from what I can tell in this area. As far as the WW issue, I too am interested in the blow down I have never seen my wheel scrubs blow out and they were factory installed but JC missed a lot of crap on this gantry (numerous starting issues). Anyway, I use the old freeze protection which runs heated AF through the gantry. That line plus the heated presoak line are usually enough to keep the lines from the wall to the gantry warm enough to stay unfroze. I did take that middle tarp wrap off this year though and had freeze issues.