City shut off the water main.

[Tpoppa]

This is supposed to be the coldest night of the year so far...25 degrees or so.

Without any prior notification, the city shut off the water main that feeds my wash and many other businesses on my block to fix the water line to a vacant property. By coincidence I just happened to be checking on the wash and saw the Dept of Water trucks. After many calls to the Dept of Water, they said it will be down for 4 hours.

I cut all the power to my bays and put up cones. I'm sure I'll have some frozen lines to deal with. Which, I guess is better than burned up pumps if they had run with no water.

Anyone had this happen before?

 

[Randy]

Sure have. We keep 5 gallons of anti-freeze windshield cleaner in the equipment room that’s good down to -22 deg. for emergencies like this. We pump it into the systems and leave it until everything is back to normal. We also use it when we shut down the wash when it gets to cold.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

For future reference, you could have stayed there with it and run your spot free occasionally to keep things from freezing.

 

[Tpoppa]

I can deal with frozen lines. The lack of notice is what really burns me up. If I hadn't just happened to be there pumps would have been running dry.

 

[Bob-O]

TPOPPA, If your worried about pumps running dry, you could put low water shut off float in your rinse water holding tank. when the water gets to low to run your pumps it cuts the power to your pumps.

 

[washme1]

One thing to watch for when the water pressure is restored. It can bring a lot of debris from the sudden surge of water in the cities mains and clog your tips. You may want to run several gallons through your SS wands without the tips installed to prevent this. When my water was shut off due to a water main break, it was below zero. I breathed a sigh of relief when I finished thawing the fifth and last bay only to find that four of them had refrozen due to debris clogging the weep.

 

[pitzerwm]

Installing a low/no pressure alarm that also calls you or the alarm company will save you grief too.

 

[mjc3333]

Our local water co. will notify IF they have the current info on file.
They have my cell # house # but have never called, even when they shut off the water. Having an alarm on the water pressure and a low water cutoff would be your best bet.

 

[Twodose]

Sure have. We keep 5 gallons of anti-freeze windshield cleaner in the equipment room that’s good down to -22 deg. for emergencies like this. We pump it into the systems and leave it until everything is back to normal. We also use it when we shut down the wash when it gets to cold.

How do you pump it into your system?

And are you talking about off the shelf windshield washer fluid?

 

[Randy]

I installed a “T” with a 3/8” ball valve on bottom of the “T” in the weep water supply line just downstream of the ASCO 8210G34 Normally open solenoid valve. When it gets cold I turn off the weep water, ½” ball valve just upstream of the Normally open solenoid valve and connect a air hose to the3/8” ball valve and blow air into the weep system this blows out most of the water. Then I connect a hose from small 12 volt DC RV water pump and pump Windshield Wash and Deicer into weep system. I like the12 volt DC RV water pump because if you lose power you can still get power from the truck or car to run the pump. This whole process takes about 5-10 minutes. I turn off the power to the pumps and leave the guns and foam brush handles installed. I bought a case of 6 1 gallon jugs of PEAK -20F Windshield wash and Deicer for $12.00. It takes about a gallon of deicer to do the car wash. It doesn’t get cold enough here to justify floor heat so we’ve been shutting the car washes down when it’s into low 20’s. It's kind of nice not having a huge gas bill for floor heat.

 

[Twodose]

What type of fitting do you have on the ball valve to hook the pump RV pump to?