Help with set up basics?

[Stick]

Hi all. Stick here.
Being in the HVAC industry as a tech for 35 years, I've met a lot of people.
Well, one of my good customers has this 4 bay car wash sitting vacant behind his restaurant. It's gutted.
Long story short, an offer was made. Get it up and running, maintain it for a piece of the profit per month.

We have some used equipment sitting in a barn, bought at auction, 2 years ago.
A boiler, a rack of pumps, a compressor, some 55 gallon drums, vacuums, a pull thru automatic set of rails, with the motor and controls.
And a ton of hoses and wires.
A complete car wash, I think it was a 2 bay ss and one bay automatic.

The plan is to try and get the 4 bays up and running, self service only for now.

I know electricity, pumps, pressures, regulators, fluids, boilers from my main gig.

What I need is a basic layout of how a self service system works,

Looks to me, incoming water is fed to the high pressure pumps, with silinoid valves opening to feed the individual bays with
wax or soap when called for.

I'm gonna get a basic inventory this week, I've got some pics.
The call to the utility companies to get the gas and electric on will be made tomorrow, Monday.

After looking around the site, it seems there are some knowledgeable, civil, and basically nice people that post.
Not looking for the answer to life, but any feedback would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance........stick.

 

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[Greg Pack]

You claim you're HVAC tech yet you can figure out how to take a picture on a smartphone

Just joshing- HVAC training is about as good a training as it gets for carwashing.

Sorry, I don't have any schematics, but I had to beat IBwashincars to a smartass remark

 

[Stick]

You claim you're HVAC tech yet you can figure out how to take a picture on a smartphone

Just joshing- HVAC training is about as good a training as it gets for carwashing.

Sorry, I don't have any schematics, but I had to beat IBwashincars to a smartass remark

Takin the pics no prob guy.

Gettin them up here took a bit tho, I must confess

 

[MEP001]

It's hard to say without better pics of the pump stands, but as a rule you have city pressure that feeds the pumps from a solenoid when rinse is selected and tanks for soap, wax and hot water that the pumps draw from on those selections. There are a few ways to do tire cleaner, presoak and foam brush, the most common is with a tank for each with a Hydrominder valve, solenoids and a pump for each system. Tire cleaner/presoak can just tee into the top of the boom with a common check valve, spot free would need its own.

 

[Stick]

It's hard to say without better pics of the pump stands, but as a rule you have city pressure that feeds the pumps from a solenoid when rinse is selected and tanks for soap, wax and hot water that the pumps draw from on those selections. There are a few ways to do tire cleaner, presoak and foam brush, the most common is with a tank for each with a Hydrominder valve, solenoids and a pump for each system. Tire cleaner/presoak can just tee into the top of the boom with a common check valve, spot free would need its own.

Thx Mep.
We are on a well. Drain goes into town sewage line.
The wands. How do those work. Are the hoses under pressure all the time and activate the high pressure pump on a drop in pressure?
Hot water. The building has a tankless water heater. If it's toast, busted from being frozen, we have a brand new spare, a nice Reini,
and would like to go that route if we could. I noticed, the stuff in the barn, 2 40 gal water heaters. But would like to not use them,
unless the wax needs them.

. The pics, was pitch dark when I got to the barn.
I'm blaming the poor quality in the iPhone flash.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

I'm not about to say anything about his pictures. I saved one and rotated it, but couldn't figure out how to post it at all. Why does posting pictures have to be so hard?

 

[Stick]

I'm not about to say anything about his pictures. I saved one and rotated it, but couldn't figure out how to post it at all. Why does posting pictures have to be so hard?

Older, cheap software ib.
Some sites you can go right from your device to the site.
Not here.
Here, you gotta upload them to a site like photobucket or flicker, or a site that does accept directly from your device.
Then, copy the address the place like flicker gives it, bring it here, hit the little square icon 3rd from the left in the bar above,
paste the address, the URL, in the box that pops up, hit okay, or continue, then hit post quick reply.
Poof, the pic should show.
You gotta go back and forth, between sites,, pasteing individual urls for every pic you want to put up.
This place, you might be able to put maybe 3 urls per post, I dunno, I just did one at a time.
Photobucket costs money, flicker I think is free, but only holds about 50 pics before they want money.

Now, if I only knew why a self service car wash needs hot water............

 

[wash4me]

While you can no doubt figure this out you would be far ahead to get a car wash guy out there to help you with layout material list etc.

 

[MEP001]

The wands. How do those work. Are the hoses under pressure all the time and activate the high pressure pump on a drop in pressure?

Not quite, the pumps should have balanced pressure regulators, the guns will usually be weep guns. The motor runs all the time it's called for, the regulator keeps the pressure constant. You can use unloaders and shut-off guns, but they can be troublesome and you'd have to change everything over in the winter to have weep to freeze-protect the lines.

Hot water. The building has a tankless water heater. If it's toast, busted from being frozen, we have a brand new spare, a nice Reini, and would like to go that route if we could. I noticed, the stuff in the barn, 2 40 gal water heaters. But would like to not use them, unless the wax needs them.

IMO you need hot water more for soap than wax. I've been to many washes that either use cold for wax or have no hot water at all, and the wax seems to work the same. One issue with a Rinnai heater is that it restricts flow until the temperature is achieved, so you're unlikely to get 12 GPM of hot water through it. You may need two, or you could use one of the water heaters as a storage tank and use a pump to circulate from the Rinnai into the tank. At least that way you might run out of hot, but you won't run out of water. Just a suggestion if you're running on a tight budget.

You need hot water for the high-pressure soap. You can get by with cold, but I have yet to see a car wash that works with cold water on soap. Even if it's just for customer perception, you need hot water.

Try Facebook for hosting your images. It's free and unlimited, you don't have to use Facebook if you don't want to. Just create an album and set it for all to see, upload and link the image URL.

 

[Greg Pack]

It might be worth paying a local tech to come in for a couple of hours and show you how to set it up and plumb things. All modern systems Ive seen use 24VAC for control. Basically in most systems, the timer in the bay acts as a a NO relay. When a person activates the timer by putting in the correct amount of money, the timed output sends 24V back to the various functions in the equipment room to activate the solenoids. Almost all low pressure functions use two solenoids, one plumbed to the chemical side and one plumbed to the air side. Its the mixture of these two at the proper balance that creates the foaminess. So each low pressure function you have will likley have eight solenoids.

There is also freeze protection to consider since you are in WV.

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