HOT WATER

[yhannat]

Happy Thanksgiving.

I have a question that is puzzling me. My self serve carwash does not have any hot water. I am thinking about adding it during this winter but here in Tennessee it only get cold for a couple of months. I am wondering how you add it? I have basic connections. One tank that fill in with water which supplies the CAT pumps. Another for high pressure soap and another for wax. Someone suggested to me to get an immersion water heater and stick it in the high pressure soap tank. This way customer will get somehow warm water when they use this option.

how do you have yours set up? Would appreciate some pictures as well

 

[Cwajciec]

I am playing with a similar idea as I just installed one of these into my presoak tank. https://a.co/d/80NxLJe
I have a warm water circulation and a thermostat that kicks on a pump when the temperature gets cold enough. So far it’s working ok.
you could also put one of those into your fresh water holding tank but you should probably insulate it.

 

[washnshine]

An immersion heater in a soap/wax/rinse tank is better for maintaining water that is already warm or hot. It probably can’t keep up with the demand of a soap tank that is constantly being refilled with cold water when on heavy use. Incoming water temperatures in the colder weather are lower to begin with and recovery will be slower. You will need an actual water heater, be it an on demand unit or hot water tank.

 

[Waxman]

my ss wash has a dedicated propane boiler for production water. all functions on self serve are hot. iba chemicals are hot, rinse is cold.

hot water is stored in an 80 gal tank. my pump stand has tanks above pumps for clear water, wax, soap, foam brush and salt remover. All are hot.

I know a lot of people use cold water for rinse But I like to keep everything hot. I'm five dollars to start,about a dollar a minute so I think the hot water matches the premium price pretty well. Hot water cleans everything better.

 

[washnshine]

I like hot for all the self serve functions too - including rinse like Waxman said.

 

[Greg Pack]

Immersion heater is not going to work. You could maybe do something unusual like heat your foam brush or low pressure presoak with one but high pressure function is going to require much more output.

Natural gas is not expensive here. At one wash all water is heated, at another wash the soap and wax functions are heated. I run it warm, hot enough for the customer to feel and improve cleaning, but I don't want it so hot that it melts grease off. I'm not doing any grease washers any favors. The natural gas bill is very reasonable. The natural gas bill is less than 1% of gross revenue

 

[yhannat]

Thank you all. I tried the immersion Heather today and big fail. It did not work.

‘can someone share a picture or video on how they have it set up with a boiler.

Much appreciated.