Does recycling weep water save $ ?

[PaulLovesJamie]

My weep system uses recycled water - the bay guns weep into drains that run into a tank under the equipment room; an electric motor and procon pump moves the water from this tank into a bladder tank, which provides the pressure to weep back out to the bays again. Nice little green recycling system. We all know that recycling saves the environment and money, this system is saving me a ton, right? I must have lived in Missouri in a previous life - I wanted to see just how much. Show me the numbers, so to speak. So on Dec 30 I hooked a water meter and a watt meter into my weep system, I plan to record the numbers monthly for the remainder of the weep season.

But alas, my curious and impatient self couldnt wait for the end of the month - I checked the numbers this morning.
Even I was a bit surprised - electricity costs to run the weep system for 1 week was $1.27. 8500 gallons of water weeped (recycled), which would have cost me $72.25 if it was city water (and sewer).
Wow, $71 in cost avoidance in one week, thats even better than I expected!

Since I already have the recycled weep system I know this study isnt super valuable to me, but my curiosity is semi-satisfied and I now know how much it costs me to weep city water if I have a problem with my recycle system - ie how urgently I would need to fix the recycling setup. And admittedly I've always wondered which of the many "freeze avoidance" setups is most cost effective... this does give me one data point toward answering that question. Approx $5/month in operational costs to run my weep system is probably pretty hard to beat. (Definitely not saying my system is the best, simply sharing some interesting info.)

A couple other bits of info in case anybody is wondering.
Yes, I use a weep mizer.
Avg temps this week were in the 20s; low was 12, high was 43. So the weep ran pretty much all week. Typical winter weather around here.
Yes I have an inexpensive water meter that I can hook up to just about anything I want, and yes I already have an inexpensive watt meter. So measuring these #s only cost me about 30 minutes of work to hook it up.

 

[Earl Weiss]

Do you have some sort of filte in place so recycled weep does not clog the tips, or does your setup keep it really clean?

Also seems like the thing to do as an original design. Cost prohibitive as a retrofit.

 

[PaulLovesJamie]

No I don't have a filter on it, but the foot valve on the hose that pulls water from the tank does have a strainer on it, and is suspended about 6" from the bottom of the tank. I do get a very small amount (maybe a cup or 2) of sediment in the bottom of the recycle pit, I clean it out every fall.

Agreed, I don't know an easy way to retrofit this system in an existing wash.

 

[Eric H]

I have a similar weep reclaim system. I turned mine off a few years ago when I was having some issues with it. It still has the original (1985) Goulds cast iron pump. Can you tell me about your Procon setup? I don't think the shallow well pump have enough volume when the temp gets down to 0*. Do you know the flow and psi for the Procon?

Can you also tell me about the water meter you are using. I need one to measure a few things around the wash.

 

[PaulLovesJamie]

Eric, the procon I use is a 104B240F11xxx, the 240 indicates gph. Here's a link to see how to read the model numbers: http://www.proconpumps.com/PDFs/Matrix Series 1-6.pdf.

I drive it with a small electric motor - will get the model & specs for you when I go to the wash later today. (Bought the motor from dultmeier iirc, called and asked for a reco & ordered it on the spot.) The pump & motor feed a small (7-8 gal?) bladder repressurization tank, which then drives the weep. Its an ugly DIY job sitting on the equip room floor, but it works reliably for me. Will take a couple photos if you want.

FYI, I dont know if my setup would push enough water to prevent freezing down to 0*F - I think it would be OK if I increased the pressure, but since we dont get that cold very often I get lazy and switch to hot water weep (at a lower pressure) when it gets down below 10.

Water meter - not sure of the brand/model, will check that when I get to the wash later too.

 

[Bob Koo]

Curiousity Question?

Do you have a backup system incase you lose electrical power?

A N/O Solenoid Valve to hold back City Water would be backup since the valve would open if you lost power.
Sounds like if you lost power where you are, you would have a frozen carwash the next morning.

Just a question because my place is in Florida, and I can only pray if it gets that cold down here and hope the lines are only frozen and not broken.

 

[PaulLovesJamie]

Eric, the water meter I bought is a DLJ-75 from watermeters.com. My primary requirement was "inexpensive" but I also wanted some degree of reliability and accuracy, this seemed to be a good fit for my needs. I've had it for a couple years, works great. Notice that they do have a hot water model if that matters to you. I put large push-loc fittings on it so it's easy to move around, and also got a few of the push-lock size adapters so I can use it easily on any size poly. I have not tried it with anything high pressure.

The motor for the procon pump is a 1/2 HP continuous duty GE motor, the model # looks like 5kh36mm2537x but a couple of the numbers are a bit smeared (the "25").

Bob, yes I have an emergency backup with a NO solenoid & city water. What I have not (yet) tried to do though is get the emergency backup to work if my recycle system fails for some reason. Just one more thing on the never-ending task list

 

[ted mcmeekin]

We have closed loop system with shallow well pump and 50 micron filter. We do need change filter every 6 months to a year so weep floe does not get too low.

Ted