Doors and heat vs. weep and floor heat for IBA?

[slash007]

I have doors on both of my IBA and overhead heaters and the setup works fine. Even if the heat quits, I'm ok down to about 22 degrees with the doors down. So far not too much trouble out of the doors. I am looking at a wash that instead has no doors and just weeps out of their touch free and has floor heat. Would it be worth adding doors and heat, or stick with the weep/floor heat?

 

[bert79]

We're in Michigan. We love the doors on our IBA. We have no heat except the floor heat. Keeps the bay above freezing down to about 15 degrees. The IBA also weeps if the floor heat doesnt keep up. Without the doors we would be screwed in the winter with the blowing snow and ice. I've heard horror stories from the previous owner who never had doors.

 

[srr5008]

Northeastern PA here. We have doors, floor heat, a bay heater along the ceiling, and our machines "blow off" regularly (we like redundancy, if you couldn't tell!). I can't imagine operating without doors. Any little bit of wind blowing through your bay and you can kiss any benefit you'll get from your floor heat. With our setup, we have never had to close due to the cold. We've operated in subzero temperatures (that's not accounting for wind chill) and never had any issues.

We've also had our overhead heaters go out on us, and the doors helped keep our floor heat in the bay - which is similar to the setup you are proposing.

Long story short, I would add the doors at a minimum.

 

[slash007]

Thanks for the insight. Trying to figure out what it would cost me if I bought this wash since I would be making changes.