Manifolds above bays or in Equipment room

[Nuphoenix]

I'm trying to come up with a plan to restore the wash I bought. The seperate lines used to all run up to the attic and had a panel to feed everything up to a manifold above each bay. The lines were not run to the center of the bays and my roof is sloped. The trough that holds the lines is on the high side so you have to crawl in the low side to work on them. I want to run the new lines down the center so you can stand somewhat while inspecting/servicing them. My question is whether I can just have a manifold in the equipment room and just run high pressure lines to the main boom and inject chemical in the equipment room? Can I use the same line to use low pressure functions? There are separate lines for foam brush.

 

[MEP001]

You can, but neither you nor your customers will like the long changeover time.

FWIW, I had at another wash used a programmable relay to blow out the high pressure line from the boom to the gun after an idle period, and that really helped speed the low pressure to the gun, from 16 seconds or so on tire cleaner down to less than three. Obviously the longer line you'll be dealing with will make a big difference - I would at least run spot free to the boom.

There is self serve equipment that uses the bay pump to move everything to the bay, but in my fairly limited experience with it, it's wasteful and doesn't work very well compared to individual tubing lines.

Maybe it would be worth the money to use something like 1/4" Synflex. It's expensive but it should last forever under low pressure. Another FWIW, I've always used nylon tubing and I always put something in the room to protect the tubing against a failed check valve at the boom. Wherever it's not been completely protected from light, I use all black so there's never any degradation. I've taken down clear nylon tubing that after 5 years or so would shatter like a fluorescent tube when it hits the ground. Black tubing doesn't do that.

 

[Earl Weiss]

I'm trying to come up with a plan to restore the wash I bought. The seperate lines used to all run up to the attic and had a panel to feed everything up to a manifold above each bay. The lines were not run to the center of the bays and my roof is sloped. The trough that holds the lines is on the high side s

Photos? Can you run a trough on top of the roof?

 

[Nuphoenix]

The plan so far is to move the trough to the center of the attic. But I'd rather just run 2-3 lines per bay instead of all the chemical lines along with the high/low/FB lines.

 

[Jeff_L]

IMHO manifolds above each bay. Reduces the switchover time. Pain to repair if you don’t have the headroom, but your customers will be happier.

 

[Earl Weiss]

The plan so far is to move the trough to the center of the attic. But I'd rather just run 2-3 lines per bay instead of all the chemical lines along with the high/low/FB lines.

When I re did my 8 bays low pressure lines there were we had 7 air and low pressure lines. They were on spools in the ER. Put a piece of pipe thru spools and rested pipe on blocks so they rotated freely . Pulled all 7 at once . Start with furthest bay.

 

[tdlconceptsllc]

I just redid my 10 bay self serve this week was a major job. If you run 1 line and not air & liquid for each product the chemical show is no where as good and mixing. You should have no problem with switchover on a small wash as long as you have 3/8 HP hose

 

[Burky]

I’m putting mine above the bays. I have a question for some of you with more experience than me. Do I need a check valve on the manifold where my high-pressure line feeds in? Or do I only need to check valves on the low pressure lines?

 

[tdlconceptsllc]

I’m putting mine above the bays. I have a question for some of you with more experience than me. Do I need a check valve on the manifold where my high-pressure line feeds in? Or do I only need to check valves on the low pressure lines?

Low pressure ones only and spot free also. Put a non working swivel on manifold incase you ever have to change hose

 

[Burky]

Low pressure ones only and spot free also. Put a non working swivel on manifold incase you ever have to change hose

Thanks! Will do.