Pdq G-5..does It Really Need Those Heaters?

[washworks installations]

We have over 15 G-5's currently and a good chunk of them are victim to failed on-board soap heaters. We are thinking that since the replacement costs are around $1500 a pair why not just use the available hot water on site instead. I know that the temp won't be as high but the 4000 and M-5 still do fine. I know the soap guys are gonna eat me alive here but why not just add "hot water injection" and program that for just my chemical apps.??? Opinions please.

 

[pitzerwm]

$1500 for a thermostat?? Is there still swamps available in FL.

 

[washworks installations]

not the thermostat but the actual On board heater themselves. The thermostats would be extra of coarse.

 

[ProCarWashes]

Absolutely that will be OK. I've been doing that very thing for 10 years at one location.

 

[soapy]

I have rykos that have the on board heaters but I always supplied the presoak with hot water any way so when the heaters go out I just bypass them and it has worked fine.

 

[Waxman]

I thought all in-bays just used hot water supply in pump room for presoak applications. Silly me!

 

[ProCarWashes]

Equipment

You need to think outside the box brother. These machines are placed in many locations that have NO support equipment. Sometimes the wash equipment is even place in a wash bay it self. Where the heating of presoak water is done electrically. No equipment room is even built. All to lower overall startup costs. Which then increases the ROI. This looks well and good to a short term investor, but the down side it longevity. The exposure of a harsh environment over a relative short period of time, means higher maintaining of equipment. In some rare cases, the heater is placed on the machine as a backup. Hope I was helpful.

 

[Gabriel]

The other bad thing about replacing these things is that they just go out again. Go to a central heater and disconnect them. That is what we did anyway!

 

[Jeff_L]

I don't have the PDQ's, but my autos (and self serves for that matter) use hot water from the boiler for the soap. Also, I keep my chemical mixture tank low and pipe hot water to the hydrominder. That way it fills often with hot water so I have hot soap going into hot water going into the pumps. Works great! Especially in the winter for the self serves, customers love holding onto the hot bay hose and washing their cars.

 

[Mike]

We have over 15 G-5's currently and a good chunk of them are victim to failed on-board soap heaters. We are thinking that since the replacement costs are around $1500 a pair why not just use the available hot water on site instead. I know that the temp won't be as high but the 4000 and M-5 still do fine. I know the soap guys are gonna eat me alive here but why not just add "hot water injection" and program that for just my chemical apps.??? Opinions please.

If you do this, you should remove the heaters, and disable them in the software.

If you leave the heater tanks on the machine it will take about 1.5 cars worth of run time on soap to get warm water out of arch, as the warm water feeding the pump has to warm up all the lines, plus displace the water in the tanks.

You can select the water inlet on each cycle, so adding reclaim or hot water inject will enable you to do this.

Be mindfull that you will not have instant hot soap on the cars and will probally have to increase your dwell times to get warm soap out of arch before moving the bridge.

For more details or if you have questions please feel free to give me a call at PDQ.