How do avoid high pressure lines freezing overnight?

[coincarwash.ca]

It has been extremely cold here at night with windchill of -35c and every morning I have at least one bay frozen and sometimes as many as 5 frozen. I have unplugged my weepmizer, put on bigger tips and even taped the gun triggers and closed the bays.....what can I do to avoid this....last night I went as far as taking of the guns completely.

 

[cantbreak80]

Turn off the weep water
Connect your compressor to the bay supply hoses...(you'll have to figure out the best way to do this)
Give 'em a few blasts of air
Turn off the 24v to the meter boxes
Go home, put your feet up and have a cocktail.
You won't have any business until you reverse the process, but at least you won't freeze your tuckus off thawing frozen bays.

 

[slash007]

Would blowing out the lines be enough, or would I have to run ww fluid in them? I almost blew the lines out last week when it hit -12, but wasn't setup to do so and left them alone. At one wash I weeped hot water and nothing froze, at the other 3 bays froze. Problem with freezing is that aside from the time in the cold making them work again, I had busted fittings in the trough, two spray guns busted and two flex wands.

 

[cantbreak80]

slash,
It's a "belt and suspenders" kinda thing. If you're comfortable with air-only, then by all means just blow them out. But remember, water collects in the lowest point of the plumbing...so, wire the trigger guns open, lay them on the bay floor and blast away.

The washer fluid/anti-freeze solution is intended to displace or dilute any moisture that collects in the "loop" of the bay hose. That's where there always seems to be a problem. As the moisture collects in the loop, additional blasts of air tend to blow over the pool...Washer fluid or RV anti-freeze helps to solve that issue.

 

[2Biz]

Guys,

I posted some pictures of my new weep/blow-down/WF system on another weep problem thread. Its very simple and easy to make...I would think what your going through is painful enough to make some changes!

http://www.autocareforum.com/showthread.php?12598-weep-questions-when-to-shut-down-etc

 

[Randy]

I’d ask myself a couple of simple questions. Is it profitable to stay open when it’s -35c outside? How much business will I do if I stay open when it’s -35c outside? Do I really want to go outside and bust you’re a$$ in the freezing cold to make a few dollars. I would have shut it down a long time ago. It’s very simple to shut it down when it freezing cold. Remove guns and foam brush handles. Turn off the weep water, Connect an air hose to the weep water line and blow air into the weep system. Then pump -21 deg. windshield washer fluid into the weep system until you get a nice stream of washer fluid coming out of the hoses, put the hoses in the bays into a bucket so you can catch the washer fluid, fill the system with washer fluid, then blow out the weep system with air one more time and collect the washer fluid to reuse it again. You can also use RV anti-freeze. Go home and wait for the weather to warm up.

 

[Eric H]

Do Not, Do NOT, DO NOT use RV antifreeze! It was going to be -12 last night (I don't think we got quite that low) so I pumped RV antifreeze into the HP and FB lines. Went home and relaxed, i.e. drank too many beers. Slept in until 6, made myself a nice breakfast after the wife and kids left for school, took a long shower and got ready to head in to work. Arrived at wash #1...totally frozen. Head over to wash #2....frozen. head over to wash #3...FROZEN *$%#!@!!!!!!!! turns out that RV antifreeze doesn't freeze but it does turn to slush. The good news is that I didn't burst any hoses or fittings, but I did get an exercise in removing hoses and putting them back up after getting the slush out.

Oh, the other thing I did today was smash out my front teeth when the wrench slipped off of the fitting and hit me in the mouth. I did this several years ago with a chain while loading a back hoe onto a trainer. Good news is that it only cost about $125 to have the old epoxy removed and replaced.

 

[slash007]

Do Not, Do NOT, DO NOT use RV antifreeze! It was going to be -12 last night (I don't think we got quite that low) so I pumped RV antifreeze into the HP and FB lines. Went home and relaxed, i.e. drank too many beers. Slept in until 6, made myself a nice breakfast after the wife and kids left for school, took a long shower and got ready to head in to work. Arrived at wash #1...totally frozen. Head over to wash #2....frozen. head over to wash #3...FROZEN *$%#!@!!!!!!!! turns out that RV antifreeze doesn't freeze but it does turn to slush. The good news is that I didn't burst any hoses or fittings, but I did get an exercise in removing hoses and putting them back up after getting the slush out.

Oh, the other thing I did today was smash out my front teeth when the wrench slipped off of the fitting and hit me in the mouth. I did this several years ago with a chain while loading a back hoe onto a trainer. Good news is that it only cost about $125 to have the old epoxy removed and replaced.

Man, I'll take my two frozen bays and be happy lol. I hope that you get it all worked out. This time of year really is tough.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

And you guys don't weep hot water...why?

For the record. I have 4 washes not far from slash and 2biz and haven't had a frozen bay all winter...just sayin.

 

[slash007]

I actually just modified my other wash so that I can weep hot water, but then realized that all the hot water is soft. At that wash the brushes, TF and HP guns all weep, so weeping soft hot water is expensive. I am going to separate the HP from the TF and FB so that only the HP weeps hot. The others are fine and don't ever freeze. In the future I might just install a second WH just for hot weep water so that it doesn't use the soft water. I have been fine weeping cold water down to about -1 or so at this wash since the trough is heated, but wanted to have the hot water option for the few days a year (every few years really) that it goes even lower than that.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

wanted to have the hot water option for the few days a year (every few years really) that it goes even lower than that.

That's exactly what I have set up at my washes. I keep it on cold until I'm not comfortable with it, then I close the cold valve and open the hot. The peace of mind is worth whatever gas it costs to heat that water for however long it is needed.

 

[Eric H]

And you guys don't weep hot water...why?

Haven't had freeze up problems in the past 10+ years except for the occasional bit of debris stuck in a tip. The -10 degree night with windchill of -30 caused some problems, then the water main break near one wash when the city shut off the water was beyond my control. The RV antifreeze solution was an attempt to avoid any issues for another -10 degree night. Clearly that didn't work out in my favor.

Btw, I had already decided to tap into the hot water as well as add a way to inject washer fluid into the lines. I take a lot of pride in not having freeze ups but this past week has really kicked me in the crotch.

 

[2Biz]

And you guys don't weep hot water...why?

For the record. I have 4 washes not far from slash and 2biz and haven't had a frozen bay all winter...just sayin.

I guess I don't weep hot water cause I don't have freezeups weeping cold water...Just sayin...

We've had -16° here this winter and several -10 to -12° nights and no problems...Maybe its the way I heat my trough?

 

[I.B. Washincars]

2Biz, I thought you had been dealing with frozen LP lines this winter

 

[Jeff_L]

We all have our own solutions, and when we find one that works, we're religious about it.

You asked for advice, so here's mine. First of all, negative temp anything is really cold. Not sure I'd have the balls to completely shut down, but I don't deal with that cold. Here, we get low, single digits at times, but I still have hard core customers come in. Is it profitable at that time to stay open? Probably not, but in the long run, yes. I don't want customers to wonder whether I'm open or not, thus, I stay open.

I am a hot water weeper down to 15 degrees, then I'm wide open cold water weep. I have temp sensors on the last non moving part of the bay, right on the pipe that feeds the boom. Settings for each sensor vary on the distance to the bay for the hot water to travel, and has taken years of fine tuning.

Even with that, I get an occasional freeze up, but theirs usually a reason such as plugged tip, etc.

This is how I do it. I'm sure there are other ways, but this way is mine. ��

 

[2Biz]

2Biz, I thought you had been dealing with frozen LP lines this winter

I don't weep water in any LP hoses...The problem was with those curley hoses you hate so much. Turns out, I needed to hate them a long time ago! I tested my blowdown washer fluid injection to -5 in the bay, using straight hose, I had no freezups...So that problem was solved ditching the 35' long curley hoses.

To further add to the discussion...Until this winter I stayed open 24-7 all winter long all 4 bays, regardless of temps. I occasionally get that die hard too that washes below zero! So to solve that issue and to save money on weep, I close down 2 or 3 of the bays and only keep 1 or 2 bays open when its this cold. That seems to work well for me.

Eric....Did you blow the RV antifreeze out after filling the lines? Even using washer fluid, like Randy and CB80 points out, we blow the WF out to eliminate any water left behind...So far that seems to work for me...Except for one tiny issue I've encountered. When starting back up after a total blowdown, I've had a plugged tip or two...Probably a piece of rust or something in the hose that breaks loose with the inrush of water? But taking a tip off and cleaning is small change when your right there and watching it..

 

[Robert2181]

RV Anti-freeze works.

We have been using it for over 10 years with the purge system. We have been -28 and wind chill of -39.

It is like any other fluid, it dilutes with water and will loose its effectiveness. We use -50 RV anti-freeze.

The only time that there has been a freeze up is when tip gets plugged or a leaking solenoid or bad check valve.

 

[Randy]

Whenever I shut down my car wash in the winter I always take the guns and foam brush handles off, blow down with air, pump in WF and then blow down everything again. It’s just plain crazy to fight the cold trying to stay open when down into the single digits.