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two bays keep freezing

jacksonmi8/2

New member
I have a five bay self serve that two bays keep freezing. When I leave at night the weep is working fine and three bays are always aok in the morning but two (the same two) keep freezing. I don't remember all of the rules of nature but running water isn't supposed to freeze is it? That's the whole point of weeping. The only thing I can think of is that the spray guns rest in PVC tubes that go thru the floors and I assume into drain tiles. Could the water be freezing there and working it way back up the guns thru the tubes and into the swivels? Anyone with any ideas? All help is appreciated.

Patrick
 
Check the tips on the spray guns if there is even a small amount of debris it will partially block the tip and it will freeze.
 
Check the volume of weep water coming out of the wands that keep freezing. I’ve had to disassemble guns in the past and clean the ball/seat area. If that doesn’t work, replace the gun. Also check for a kinked weep water feed line on the freezing bays.
 
Check the water supply to the weep system. We had a similar problem, all guns weeped well, but in zero and lower temps, bays three and four would freeze after a customer used bays one or two. Froze in two to three minutes. Found that the weep supply was the last on the supply line after the automatic and the self serve pumps. When a customer used bay one or two, it drew off enough water that the weep to bays three and four stopped weeping for a couple of minutes and froze. We replumbed the system and put the weep supply at the head of the supply line and it fixed the problem immediately. We've had the system work fine to temps down to minus 15 with no problems.
 
Running water absolutely will freeze. If the two bays that freeze are farthest from the equipment room, either increase the weep flow or weep with hot water.
 
I've had similar problems in the past. I found it to be the weep seat in the some brands of guns. Sometimes some gunk will get into the weep hole, when a customer uses the bay the hole gets cleaned out but if it sits from an extended period (overnight) it will restrict the flow and freeze. I switched to Paraplate guns and haven't had any troubles, Adams guns and especially Spraying systems guns gave me lots of troubles.
 
what MEP said, 100% correct.
running water absolutely does freeze - it just has to get a little colder first. Increase your weep flow.
 
I had a check valve that would occasionally get stuck and not open after the pump shut off to allow my weep to flow through. I replaced the check valve and had no problems after that.

Check the bottom of your wand holder as well. There might be debris that is restricting water flow out of the wand nozzle. I've got a bay frozen up right now that had this happen. Water filled up the entire wand holder and frozen the whole gun in a cylinder of ice.
 
agreed debris in wand holders, customers love to use them as trash cans, i take out 2 or 3 paper towels out at least once a month.
 
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