how do you stop spot free from freezing up

[wendy's wash]

have made up antifreeze soaps for foambrush, tire cleaner, and pre-soap. the only thing i don't know how to stop is the spot free lines from freezing up. my washes are 30 plus years old and all the lines are run along the s channel. all the lines are inside pipe insulators sitting on the rails. going to freeze in houston for 45 hours straight in the next few hours. temps from the teens to just below 32. have prepaired for every thing except spot free. does anyone have a quick fix or suggest what to do. did not think of this untill this morning as i made soaps up. thanks for any ideas.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

If they are bundled with the HP hose you shouldn't have any problem. The heat from the weeping water will be enough to keep it from freezing.

 

[wendy's wash]

all the poly lines are wrapped together. the pressure line is copper tubing and wrapped seperate. the spot free control pannel is mounted inside equipment room and was added on as one of my upgrades.

 

[Jeff_L]

If you don't have any type of heat source running by the lines, then is blowing them out periodically an option?

 

[wendy's wash]

i can't see blowing out the lines at 2 washes as it will be freezing for a little over 2 days straight. i would have no way to know when a customer turns on a bay and puts water back in the line. i was thinking about a way to attach the weep water to the spot free lines and flush the lines but then when someone uses spot free they will get city water also if it is below the freeze mark. i have thought about turning off the spot free and blowing out the lines but really did not want to be with out so if someone uses the wash they won't get mad and never come back or damage things. boom swivel broke and sprayed water down in bay so the light fixtures were ripped off the railing they were mounted too. someone had really bad anger problems. they thru some thing over the lights and yanked them down.

 

[I.B. Washincars]

I think you should just blow out all of the SFR lines and disable SFR until the weather warms up. A project for next summer would be to wrap all plumbing with the HP line. The weep would then keep all the LP functions from freezing.

 

[wendy's wash]

thanks for the input. just got back from blowing out the lines and unpluged the pump. customers will just have to live with disappointment.

 

[diycarwash]

Wendy,
What did you do to antifreeze yours soap lines?
Thanks,
David

 

[wendy's wash]

didn't have to worry about my soap line. it is the high pressure line and their
is a thermostat that mounts outside and it can be adjusted to turn on at
whatever temperature you need. whenever it comes on a senlenoid kicks on
and the city water pressure goes out to each bay. both the car washes
have this. the guns are weep guns and we don't have to do nothing.
we just need to check and make sure the thermostat comes on.

the mixtures of antifreeze soaps that i made up worked except the foamy brush
soap. out of 10 bays total. every last stinking one of them was froze up.
spent 7 hours this morning thawing them all out. just did it and added more
antifreeze to the solution. tonight it will be 20 degrees and i pray with all
my heart that they are working tomorrow morning. this is a perverbiable
pain in the butt. i hate below 32 with a purple passion.

 

[diycarwash]

What did you use for anti freeze for the chemicals?

 

[randall]

Having the same problem with the lines freezing. I just turned the power off and put a sign "closed" on the front door.

 

[wendy's wash]

went to walmart and bought windshield washer fluid. i purchased the 0 degree solution. then mixed 3 gal in a 5 gal pail and added 2 gal of foam brush soap. did not work. added 1 gal more or washer fluid today. i do pray this works. will find out tomarrow morning. the next try if this does not work will go to 4.5 gal of washer fluid and .5 gal of foambrush soap. could not find the best mixture anywhere. trial and error. seems like more error so far.

 

[pitzerwm]

You might consider just taking down the FB hose and blow out the overhead part, then replace in the AM.

 

[wendy's wash]

yesterday when i got to the wash about 7am there was a customer in the only bay that was wet. young mexican kid. he drove off when i came up. started disconnecting the foambrush line in that bay first. i noticed that someone had taken the bruch and slamed it into the brick wall and broke the metal part of the head off. i believe he did it. i have customers that will break things if they lose a nickle. kid put money in a vac once and it did not come on. i saw him jump on his car and raise his legs up to kick the vac. i did stop that but only because i was there to do so. ran him off. opened coin door and found a coin that was not american. maybe that why it did no work. he's going to cause damage and it was his fault.

 

[Greg Pack]

Using washer fluid works but requires a little experimentation. I use the -20 available at autozone. My goal is to get about a 30% solution in the lines and it protects me down into the low teens. With yours being good down to only 0, you may need a higher concentration. In a pinch you can mix about 4 gallons of this product, half a gallon of regular FB detergent and run it through a hydro with a beige tip (again, I'm talking emegency measure for washes in temperate climates) and it will work in the upper teens.

I also mix this product in with my tire clean and presoak. I just dump a gallon in the tanks. I don't run overnight, my goal is just to get everything opened the following morning without a hitch. At one time I stocked anti-freeze FB but it sat here unused for years, If the weather patterns are changing to colder weather maybe it's time to stock this product again and get everything buttoned up correctly for cold weather ops.

 

[Greg Pack]

Guess I should add the above solution is not for SFR, but for foaming in bay products