Ways to save on weep water?

[Shorco1]

Randy and I were talking tonight discussing ways to save on weep water and sewer costs. Use of grey water, weep filtered pit water, weep closed loop water. These are just a few ideas of what we discussed. What ideas do the Forum members have? One of my locations uses reclaim water for weep which is very inexpensive. The city in one of my wash locations is offering grey water for use

 

[pitzerwm]

One of my X's brother-in-laws had a "weekend home" and under the tennis court, he had a 1M gallon rain water storage tank, for watering the property. If you could recycle the weep water, it could work.

 

[E.Joramo]

That sure would keep people from using the weep water to wash.

 

[soapy]

I was also discussing better ways for weep systems with Randy over the weekend. I have one location that has a closed loop system for weep. All the SS bays drained back to a small tank in the equipment room that had a pump and water heater to heat the water. It had systems built in that would add water as needed and if power ever went off it would switch over to city water pressure. When it was working it seemed to have a lot of costs to maintain. It was also pretty expensive to run with the heater and pump always running. I stopped using it years ago due to upkeep and cost.
I had a idea to winterize each bay after being used thinking it may now be cheaper to do this than to weep water at certain locations. My idea was to use a vac timers for each bay and purge the line with antifreeze solution. The vac timer would be triggered after the bay timer shuts off. The timer could be set to turn on for the right amount of time according to the length of the line to each bay. The vac timer would open a solenoid letting the antifreeze purge the line. Depending on the pump used the vac timer could also open a air solenoid for a Flojet pump to provide the pressure for the antifreeze. The cost of this type of system would be much cheaper than some that are on the market and could be setup for individual bays. Winter here is pretty cold and SS bays may not get used for days at a time. When it gets so cold that the weepmiser runs constantly I think an antifreeze might end up being cheaper.

 

[ted mcmeekin]

We have had closed loop since begining. Underground tank, shallow well pump, fail open solenoid for city water, 2 check valves. It has worked perfectly for 9 years. Tank takes other recycled sources as well and is large enough that it won't freeze.

Ted

 

[Wally]

My washes have quick disconnects where the hose to the bay leaves the pump stand. When conditions call for it, I remove the trigger gun from half of the bays and disconnect the lines to the bay and blow them out, purge the foamy brush with windshield washer fluid, put a cone in the bay, lay the brush and the hp hose on on the grate so there is no loop in the line. This cuts my weep water in half. It only takes a few minutes when you are set up for it. A separate hose for the flowjet so I can disconnect the intake hose and pop the hose in that is in bottle of windshield washer fluid that has pink soap added to it to purge the lines. Three bays takes 1/2 gallon of antifreeze. Cost $1.00

 

[Shorco1]

I like Ted's and Wally's ideas. I also like using the pit water for weep. Of course the pit water would have to be filtered. Fresh water is expensive with the sewer costs at 1 1/2 times the water used for weep. Soapy has a great idea. I have something similar to what he described that I'm using for the foam brushes and works well. I could possibly use the same unit and purge the hp lines to the bays.

 

[Wally]

The quick disconnects are on page 460 in the KR catalogue, cost about $6 per bay and then it's just a few minutes of your time to blow the lines out. I've had half of the bays closed at two washes this week. The nights have been around 20 and the highs in the 30's during the day. I'm in the south and we seldom get snow so there is no road salt to wash off and people will just wait until a nicer day to wash. I close the entire wash at night with antifreeze in the foam brushes and my clean up guy will open them the next morning when the temps start coming up. In Georgia floor heat is not used in car washes so I keep the floors clean from ice by closing in the extreme times.

 

[Robert2181]

I have had a six bay self serve car wash for just over 22 years. I have been and am currently running a Polar Freeze Guard System to eliminate my weep water.