Hot water heater?

[goodingcarwash]

We just purchased our wash in August, small town and most of the equipment is very old and mined to keep the minimum on. Long story short we got a used updated pump stand. The pump room is only about 5 feet wide and there's a huge 70gal water heater right at the door. I've been searching and don't see any information on what people use for water heaters.
Im curious if I can reclame some space and maybe increase efficiency by installing a tankless. Its only 3 Bay and one being exterior. It uses hot water for hp soap and wax.
I worry about flow, so my question is if I get say a reheem 199k btu would it work? Or would I need to install 3 one for each pump. I think the max a cat 310 pump is like 4.5gpm and by the tech sheet I think it would do it. Im not sure what would happen if all three pumps ran hp soap.
Thanks in advanced.

 

[OurTown]

One will not flow enough and will starve your pumps under high demand. You can install one heater for each pump. Is your hot water gravity fed to your pumps? If so you could plumb one or two heaters directly feeding the gravity tank and add an additional float valve set lower but with cold water. That way in the winter when the incoming city water is a little colder and all three bays are using hot water the pumps won't starve. What is your incoming water temp? What pressure are you running your pumps and what is the tip size on your wands?

 

[Greg Pack]

You can use one heater and install a recirculating system connected to a holding tank somewhere. Some old systems here just use the holding tank on the self serve.

 

[OurTown]

You can use one heater and install a recirculating system connected to a holding tank somewhere.

This is what we are going to do but I think he wants to make some space.

 

[OurTown]

Some old systems here just use the holding tank on the self serve.

How would that be set up with a tankless water heater since the tank is not under pressure?

 

[goodingcarwash]

I'll get some photos, but the current setup is 75 gallon, natural gas hot water under pressure feeding hot / cold mixing valves to cat 310pumps using 0 pressure soap/weep mixers. It uses 3 stack rotary switches to controll the hot/cold. Then a simple foam brush. Hp soap is all thats working but at one time hp wax im not sure how that worked. Hp wax is now just hp hot water. The previous owner said he had an ro system with an tank he would give me, I guess he removed it because people complained about still having spots. Not sure how it all plumed up.
I'm not sure the tip size, but I run about 1200 to the bays and the water stays a pretty consistent 70*f year around +/- 5*f

The new stand is a 2008 hydro spray https://www.carwashconsignment.com/...-equip-systems/4480-hydro-spray-4-bay-ss-2005
It dose have a lp pump and pump resivor.
I'll go get pics of the room now.

 

[goodingcarwash]

Here's the old system. If I can quickly say I do appreciate simple mecanical setups like the old pump stand operated. No controllers or computers, but as the features that was there have been minned and I think the new stand is pretty compacted. And I wasn't a fan off all the electrical and solenoids in one none water proof box above the pump.

I'll digress, with the new stand what dose the hw even come into play? Once its in the room I can start converting it over and ill get that ro system in but do I still run hw lines to the pump for hp soap and wax? Should I abandon the old and just use the new or hybird the system. Not alot of information on pump stand design and operation out there that I can find.

 

[Randy]

When I was a young man I worked for the US Navy in the nuclear program. One of the things I learned very quickly was the K.I.S.S principle, Keep It Simple Stupid. Most of the current car wash systems are grossly over complicated. So with that being said wat’s wrong with your current pumping equipment? My pumping equipment is 42 years old, I keep well maintained so I don’t have a lot of problems with it. I have on demand hot water heaters in every bay. If you decide to eliminate your tank gas water heater you’re going to need a water heater for each bay with your current equipment. If your new pumping equipment has a hot water tank for your soap you should be able to get by with one or two on demand hot water heaters to feed that hot water tank. It looks to me like some of the equipment has been poorly maintained.

 

[goodingcarwash]

Yeah. Not alot wrong, the solenoids are housed in the box above the pump and each individual. And everything except hp soap was removed. And only a few features originally. We want to have all the options to hopefully increase revenue. Researching I thought the most economical path to get us where we wanted to be was to buy used. The new stand looks to have some nice advantages and alot easier to maintain. The stand is pretty compact stacking the pumps and moving all the electronics into a water tight enclosure. Has the tanks neatly stacked on top of the pumps and the solenoid neatly organized on manifolds with the sureflow pumps and pressure regulators all organized on the end. Easy to diagnose and maintain. For the price just having a hole set of spare parts will be invaluable in the years to come. As far as the overcomplacated control box filled with micro controllers and computers they all look original, I'm waiting for wiring diagrams so I can reverse engineer it and understand the ins and outs. Maybe there are some advantages. Time will tell.
One option was to consolidate everything on a cutting board above the soap tanks but overall I think the route we took will be great in the end. Again time will tell.

 

[cantbreak80]

As far as the overcomplacated control box filled with micro controllers and computers they all look original, I'm waiting for wiring diagrams so I can reverse engineer it and understand the ins and outs. Maybe there are some advantages. Time will tell.

The HS hardware is quality stuff. Just be aware of the potential PLC concerns.
The Modicon PLC program was written during HydroSpray's Precision Auto ownership...in the 1990s.
AFAIK, Modicon is no longer in business. And, those old HS smart guys are long gone.

I'd be surprised if the 4th ownership of HS would have the I/O... but, donchaknow I am easily surprised.

 

[Earl Weiss]

Consider if you only need hot water to the pumps, I use an on demand water heater for my tunnel. The output is Td into a cold water line with a valve on each so I can adjust the amount of each depending on outside temperature.

 

[cantbreak80]

"AFAIK, Modicon is no longer in business."
Correction...Modicon PLC is still in production.

 

[Greg Pack]

How would that be set up with a tankless water heater since the tank is not under pressure?

I think I've seen some threads where some people have used a recirculating pump to feed an open tank like the old recirculating boiler systems. The float valve on the open tank keeps the system full then the recirculating pump would keep the water flowing. But If he doesn't have a water tank this is not a viable option.

 

[Greg Pack]

Interesting, never seen someone use HP hoses to connect to a water heater to the plumbing.I'm guessing that's not to code But heck, a lot easier/cheaper than hard pipe!

You can make that system work but holy cow that's a tangled mess of stuff in there and the electronics pictures in the other thread indicates the electronics is way too complex. You may could find a more conventional system on one of the facebook groups. Someone just sold a coleman 3 bay and he probably got about 5K for it.

 

[OurTown]

Interesting, never seen someone use HP hoses to connect to a water heater to the plumbing.I'm guessing that's not to code But heck, a lot easier/cheaper than hard pipe!

You can make that system work but holy cow that's a tangled mess of stuff in there and the electronics pictures in the other thread indicates the electronics is way too complex. You may could find a more conventional system on one of the facebook groups. Someone just sold a coleman 3 bay and he probably got about 5K for it.

They do make code compliant flexible water heater connection hoses and I'm sure they cost less than 3/4 HP hoses. Did you see the washing machine supply hose and faucet supply lines on the pump stand? Must have been a plumber that installed the pump stands and a car wash distributor that installed the water heater.

 

[goodingcarwash]

They do make code compliant flexible water heater connection hoses and I'm sure they cost less than 3/4 HP hoses. Did you see the washing machine supply hose and faucet supply lines on the pump stand? Must have been a plumber that installed the pump stands and a car wash distributor that installed the water heater.

The previous owner was a builder, im pretty sure he installed most of the equipment. I was reading a thread on here where mod101 (rip) recommended gutting the box and simplifying it considerably using relay chains for spot free ect. Its pretty straightforward, and I appear to be missing a "main cpu controller" labeled on 3 cat 5 cables. I'm pretty sure this is the route I'm going to take. This way I can start by installing the hydro miners and flow jet then convert one bay at a time. Eliminate any shut downs and allowing me to work a few hours after work on it. At the end of the day all the plc is doing right now is passing the signals through to the corresponding relays. But really over complicating the whole system for features I'll probably never use.

 

[Randy]

The easiest and the most reliable system would be a Dixmor LED-7 timer out in the bay with a multi-coin coin acceptor, Micro-coin or Slugbuster. Controlling a IDX MX-8 multiplexer to control the different systems or with a small 3 bay car wash a bank of relays. A couple of small stainless steel tanks for chemicals and Flojet pumps to pump the product. Just remember this isn't the space shuttle. Keep it simple

 

[goodingcarwash]

The easiest and the most reliable system would be a Dixmor LED-7 timer out in the bay with a multi-coin coin acceptor, Micro-coin or Slugbuster. Controlling a IDX MX-8 multiplexer to control the different systems or with a small 3 bay car wash a bank of relays. A couple of small stainless steel tanks for chemicals and Flojet pumps to pump the product. Just remember this isn't the space shuttle. Keep it simple

Yupp so next on the list is the tripple foam i got it with the pump stand also. I robbed one of the gensan gs400 to replace a failed dx7 it really packs alot of features while being a little more complicated to program. I also got 4 idx ma800 coin exceptions in the exchange. So I can do tokens or dollar coins. Hoping to have coin boxes bill exceptor and credit card machines in before next summer.

 

[goodingcarwash]

I'm going to try using the stack of relays for daisy chained circuit isolation. I know they're dc but they seem to work. We'll see

 

[goodingcarwash]

This pump stand has solenoids on the air lines to the flow jet pumps. I would need a multiplexer right? Or can/should I just delete those solenoids?