Southern freeze coming

[jlouis23603]

Hi all,

I recently purchased a four bay carwash in Louisiana. We have a freeze coming next week and looking for some tips.

my plan is to shut off the main put a space heater in the pump room and drain my hydrominers. My setup does not have a weep mixer but my guns are weeping guns. My concern is the flojet and foam brush. What is the best way to winterize that and drain the lines. I saw a post about blowing air through the discharge line at the pump. The prior owner said he did the same thing but would go to the bays and run each feature for a couple seconds.

thanks guys for any advice

 

[Greg Pack]

Guys up north will laugh, but no floor heat so our bays become an ice rink when it's below freezing. And business drops 90% because everyone except a few dedicated (crazy)customers will just wait the couple days until it gets warm.

If you have multiple nights in the 30s over a season and your water/sewer is expensive you would benefit from a weepmizer. It's actually more beneficial in the temperate climates of the 30's. When it's super cold (I think below 27) it runs all the time just like a standard weep system

If it gets down to the mid 20s I take a closer look at the forecast and see how the next day warms up. It's getting in the teens next week and highs the following days in the mid 30's I too won't battle it, I'll just shut down before it gets to freezing Monday PM until it warms back up Thursday. I try to keep the equipment room warm (40- 50). Everything in the equipment room should be OK if it stays higher than 40. Water weeping is an option for the HP lines, but in extended shutdowns you can mix -20 anti freeze windshield washing fluid about 50/50 with water and flush out all high and low pressure lines with that and shut everything down. That will protect lines down until the teens and prevent a hard freeze if it gets even colder. You can do an air only blowdown but water will likely settle in low spots and block the lines. But enough liquid is usually removed from the lines to prevent an expansion type damage to lines and fittings. I've intended to build a blowdown system like some of the awesome ones the members here have built, but this is usually something that happens a couple times a year and I only think about it when I'm cussing while shutting down the washes.

 

[jlouis23603]

Guys up north will laugh, but no floor heat so our bays become an ice rink when it's below freezing. And business drops 90% because everyone except a few dedicated (crazy)customers will just wait the couple days until it gets warm.

If you have multiple nights in the 30s over a season and your water/sewer is expensive you would benefit from a weepmizer. It's actually more beneficial in the temperate climates of the 30's. When it's super cold (I think below 27) it runs all the time just like a standard weep system

If it gets down to the mid 20s I take a closer look at the forecast and see how the next day warms up. It's getting in the teens next week and highs the following days in the mid 30's I too won't battle it, I'll just shut down before it gets to freezing Monday PM until it warms back up Thursday. I try to keep the equipment room warm (40- 50). Everything in the equipment room should be OK if it stays higher than 40. Water weeping is an option for the HP lines, but in extended shutdowns you can mix -20 anti freeze windshield washing fluid about 50/50 with water and flush out all high and low pressure lines with that and shut everything down. That will protect lines down until the teens and prevent a hard freeze if it gets even colder. You can do an air only blowdown but water will likely settle in low spots and block the lines. But enough liquid is usually removed from the lines to prevent an expansion type damage to lines and fittings. I've intended to build a blowdown system like some of the awesome ones the members here have built, but this is usually something that happens a couple times a year and I only think about it when I'm cussing while shutting down the washes.

Thanks! I did read about the antifreeze idea. Very rarely we get into the 20s like this down here. I'm South Louisiana by Lafayette. It only looks the high will be 35 and then down to 17 and then we warm back up. My concern is the outside lines. The prior owner said he's never had a issue in the 8 years he owned with doing what he did. I just don't want to wake up to busted hoses and repairs

 

[AnalyticWash]

I saw a post about blowing air through the discharge line at the pump.

Disconnect your HP and foam brush lines at the pump/manifold inside and blow them all down with air. Flushing with washer fluid (as stated above) or RV antifreeze first will offer additional protection but you will likely be fine without.

One hour of work now vs days to rebuild all your brass and cracked hoses...

 

[Randy]

-20 Windshield is hard to find in the South. I just checked and you can get RV anti-freeze at the Wal-mart in Broussard LA. RV anti-freeze will freeze, it turns to slush, but it doesn’t expand like water does. This is how I’d do it. Disconnect the HP lines from the pumps, blow them out with air. Drian the foam brush tank, Pre-soak, Tire cleaner tank. Add a gallon or so of RV anti-freeze to each tank and pump the RV anti-freeze into the system in each bay. After you get the LP systems pumped full of RV anti-freeze pump RV anti-freeze into the HP hoses, use whichever LP system is easiest to get to. I have “T”s with valves in place on my weep system ready to go. I keep a shutdown freeze kit in a bucket staged with all the hoses valves, pump ready to go and in August I bought 5 gallons of -32 windshield washer fluid. If I shut down for more than 3 or 4 days I’ll pull the guns and foam brush handles off. We’ve got a big cold snap coming in on Friday night though the weekend.

 

[Rfreeman]

I'm in Texas and got screwed by snowmagedon 2 years ago due to loss of power. I have electric heaters installed now and propane heaters with full tanks as back ups. Wifi thermometer with alert points set for 40⁰ and to ring my cell phone.

I will disconnect the guns to avoid any smaller orifice (spray tip) from restricting flow. Bungee tie my hp hose straight to my grates and weep straight into my pits. I'll blow air through the LP functions and disconnect all the timers in the bay. Cone it off and call it a day.

Yes I have PTSD from 2 years ago........what's the temp?????

 

[kentadel]

It's not going to get above 0 here for 3 days straight so for the 1st time in maybe 20 years I took the wands off in the self service bays and shut the power off to close the bays down. Usually weep and exit doors closed get us through ok but this time we will follow Randy's procedure to a t. I learned from the school of hard knocks to now over prepare for a bad weather forecast.

 

[Dan kamsickas]

It's not going to get above 0 here for 3 days straight so for the 1st time in maybe 20 years I took the wands off in the self service bays and shut the power off to close the bays down. Usually weep and exit doors closed get us through ok but this time we will follow Randy's procedure to a t. I learned from the school of hard knocks to now over prepare for a bad weather forecast.

I have mixed emotions about this weather. Personally I'm getting too old to enjoy this crap like when I was a kid. Professionally, it's great for our business. I'll soon be fielding lots of calls from customers needing to purchase stuff because they froze up.

If you're not from the north like us where we're used to this garbage and appropriately equipped(Floor heat, adjustable weep flow and temperature, heated troughs, doors, heated equipment rooms, etc), Randy's advice is solid. One solid good freeze and it will make any effort and expense you have now seem minuscule. I can provide a long list of customers that have tried to save a bit by scrimping on freeze protection and ended up costing themselves 10s of thousands of dollars.

 

[2Biz]

When shutting down, don't forget to cover your pits in the bays. Mine are about 8' long and I cover them with a 2x10...it covers the drain holes and helps keep the pit from freezing

 

[ram south la]

When it gets this cold for several days in row, we disconnect wands at swivel and place inside ER. We take caution tape and block off bays to let public know we are closed. It is too dang cold to be washing anyway. We usually are slamming busy when open back up though-- Removing the wands and having the full opening of hose for weeping instead of just spray tip speeds the return to operation process for us.

 

[Randy]

We used to leave the weep water run until the they started throwing the hoses out of the bay and making a icy mess outside the bay. Now that it expensive to leave weep water run when we are closed we turn off the water and pump washer fluid into the weep system with a flojet pump. We also put a couple of orange traffic cones in each bay.

 

[2Biz]

Looking at our forecast here in Southern Ohio, I think I'll go ahead and shut down today through about next Wednesday-Thursday. Even though I have the CW equiped for bitter cold and can stay open, I've had cars wash at -5° with no doors. Getting too old to fight this Sh$t any more. I'll leave the floor heat on so the slabs don't freeze and cover the pits. Fill all LP and HP hoses with -20° washer fluid and call it a day. It costs me maybe $10 a day for floor heat. I can weep 750-1000 gallons a day for a 4 bay HP wands only when temps are below 15°. ...($20 a day water and sewage now). Its time to wait this one out!

Something not mentioned if you fill the HP hoses with washer fluid and you use gravity tanks. You'll need a way to turn the water supply off to your pumps from the gravity tanks. If you don't and have a dripping bay, the water will come from the gravity tank and freeze the bay in no time! Ask me how I figured this out!

For the newbs out there. Winterizing a CW is no fun when you are not prepared...Maybe this will give you some ideas...I made a semi automated weep/winterizing manifold that makes filling the HP wands with washerfluid easy. Its simple using ball valves and the same flojet pump that winterizes all my LP hoses...Air and washer fluid comes in bottom left.

 

[2Biz]

Not trying to confuse anyone...I loaded an older photo of my flojet and blowdown solenoids and didn't realize it till now....The photo below shows how I modified it for manual HP wand blowdown. The BV at the bottom pumps WF and the BV at the top pumps air through the weep system. Took me less than 30 minutes to fill all the HP hoses and 8 LP hoses, Cover the pits, make sure all the gravity tanks and chemical tank BV's were shut off, SFR BV's were shut off to each bay, and turn off the weep system...This eliminates any way possible for a dripping hose to freeze....I've tried blowing out the HP hoses with air after filling with WF, but every time I reopened, I had at least 1 or 2 bays that would have plugged nozzles from flakes of something that breaks loose in the hoses...Keeping the hoses filled with washer fluid has eliminated this issue...

 

[jlouis23603]

Thank you all for your tips and advice. Just finished shutting everything down! Now to wait and see lows look like theyll get into the teens. Now to get a glass of whiskey to take the edge off!

 

[Keno]

We are going to have to shut down tomorrow for a few days and looks like the weekend again will be shut down. Outside of Atlanta and going into the teens for multiple nights. This thread helps a lot, as we aren't setup to shut down. Will be using all the tips and tricks here.

 

[designflaw]

You guys know ur stuff. I am just a slow poke/1 year old owner in Houston, TX. I took off the guns, ran the water out of the water tank, took out the soap tubing, tried to blow some air thru it, turned off and drained the air compressor and put a space heater in the equipment room. The lows will go to 10's for a couple hours. I hope I make it thru.

 

[Greg Pack]

You guys will likely be fine. If the poly tubing is not brittle it will likely survive a freeze/thaw cycle. You will find your weak spots here and know what needs to be done next time.

I'm not set up properly for cold weather so it took me 2.5 hours at each wash to shut down. This is something I only do maybe once a year. I'm going to have to make some plumbing changes and invest in doors for the IBA.

 

[RSmith]

I should have read through this before the cold weather came. I'll see what the damage is tomorrow after the thaw, but I left my self serves to weep and they froze over on day 2. Thankfully I purged all of the water from my IBA. I should have purged my self serves too.

 

[Rfreeman]

What part of TX are you in? I'm in DFW and I know how cold it got here. I left mine weeping but removed the guns...any restriction and its so cold it freezes. So far no freeze ups best of luck

 

[RSmith]

Appreciate it. I am in Horseshoe Bay, 1 hour west of Austin. I removed the tips from my guns and set them on the grates to avoid ice buildup in the bays, as I get a lot of foot traffic walking through my bays from the apartments behind my wash to the 7-Eleven next to it. It was good to know the success you had with removing the entire gun. I may give that a go for Friday and Saturday night.

Edit: The way my bays are oriented, I do have significant wind.