Pet Wash Heating and Cooling Suggestions or Ideas?

[WikiWash]

I currently have a 2 pet washes with hot water baseboard for heat (propane boiler). Over the past 10 years or so the hot water baseboards have not held up over the years and need to be replaced. If I had more time during the construction of my car wash, I would have installed radiant floor heat for the cold months and a draw fan with a venting window in the summer months . I currently have glass windows like you see on commercial store fronts. I want to get away from using the base board heat because customers and their children damage them by jumping and standing on them. They also end up rusting being in humid conditions.

I noticed that one of my competitors has a split unit to heat and cool his pet wash. I'm thinking maybe a split unit would work to keep the climate in the room more comfortable for customers and pets year round. I like the idea of a split unit because it will keep the humidity down in the summer. I'm not sure what my electric bill would be like in the winter to heat the rooms compared to using propane.

Any thoughts or suggestions for what I should do?? What do you do in your own pet wash? Thank you in advance!

 

[mjwalsh]

Wiki Wash I hope this is helpful

WikiWash,

I can easily visualize some "tough guy" dogs (ego maniacs???) kicking & ruining your baseboard heaters! Some of those animals actually do not appreciate getting washed up ... so they take it out on whatever :confused!

Based on over 4 years now on our very popular 2 room dog wash:

Between reclaiming otherwise wasted surface 180° F heat from eight of our commercial dryers' ductwork & our floor heat ... our heating works out very well even in some of our most severe cols temperatures & wind here in North Dakota.

For cooling it is set up with 2 commercial grade custom made manual sliding store front style doors on its north & south. This created a great "breeze way effect". The doors have screens on their windows that are easily used when the glass is slid up out of the way. During this exceptionally cool summer we have only needed the circulation & the fans on our 2 Trane Unit Heaters about 10 times even with our Aluminum - Polycarbonate transparent greenhouse style building. Crazy us ... we turn the Tranes' on during the summer!!! Crazy in a good way ... our tap water from the Missouri River up north here stays very cold. We turn on the Trane fans & circulate that cold water which also preheats the inlet water to our hot water makers. We have 2 higher capacity cooling units in our laundromat area which also are very effective.

WikiWash ... just a thought ... you could possibly safely use a properly sized Spirec Heat Exchanger http://www.spirec.com/ to accomplish both heating & cooling. Your Spirec would exchange BTUs with boiler water only during the non cooling part of the year. During the summer the boiler water would be routed completely away from the Spirec. The boiler water would not come in contact with the city water at any time & even could be drained as an extra precaution during the season the tap water is being circulated.

Some caveats in doing the cooling approach the way we did: Down south the tap water temperatures may be too warm to be as helpful ... although I have been told that well water can be even colder than our Bismarck Missouri River water. It helps to have more sophisticated controls. We used a PLC with HMI touchscreens for our dog wash anyway so those in conjunction with RTD thermocouple sensors & RTD PLC modules were helpful. Other control approaches besides PLC may be a better fit for some. Also it is clearly out of range for a crappy attitude destructive short circuiting similar person(s) such as shown in the below "the deficit maker man" youtube video.

mike walsh http://kingkoin.com/USA_Deficit_Reduction.html

 

[WikiWash]

Thanks MJWALSH I will look into those heat exchangers!