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@#$% Winter...

B

Bubbles Galore

Active member
Sorry, I needed to vent to those of you that will understand. For the second time this year, I will be shutting the car wash down due to the weather. This winter has been an absolute beast and dealing with the headaches won't be worth it. Basically from Sunday night through Thursday morning, I will be closed...good luck to those of you in the midwest and great lakes areas...this is going to be a pain in the ass.
 
I understand. I'll be closed from Sunday night till whenever. My truck bay is shut down right now with cones and just had some idiot move them and wash his truck and trailer then drove off without even putting them back. Got ice 1" thick due to floor heat problems in that bay... GEEZ!
 
I'm going to be closing tonight -35 to -50 "Life threatening conditions are going to be present" I love the people who pull up when I'm outside and "barely" roll their window down to ask like a dumb-ass "is the carwash open????"
 
Yep...not even worth the hassle at this point. I haven't owned the wash with a winter this bad...I hope this isn't a common occurrence...
 
I empathize with your situations. Doors are one of the best investments I ever made. They keep the people out and the inside stays warm, and the changers are secure.
 
You guys that are shutting down and blowing out your lines, and also have floor heat, are you shutting it off too? The NoBurst Glycol I use says my lines are freeze protected down to 0° to -10° mixed at 30% and burst protected to -50°. To me, it makes sense to let it run instead of taking a chance for a line to burst. It would be a lot more expensive to dig up the concrete than to just let it run 24-7 for the next few days.
 
I did that one year and all my pits froze up.
Once the cold spell broke I got all my bays up and running. When the bays starting flooding I realized I had a problem, duh.
 
I have customers still pulling in and it -11 degrees outside what is wrong with people we are closed if the snot in your nose is frozen so will the water on your vehicle. I'm almost tempted to put a huge L.E.D digital temp reading outside for passing customers to read and have a sign stating that we are closed when temps drop below this amount to help education on car washes and cold weather.
 
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I've decided to take off all self serve guns and just leave the hoses to avoid the spray nozzles clogging and also to prevent customers from trying to wash while it is a high of -1. I'll do that for tomorrow and then hook everything back up on Tuesday.
 
this is the carwash biz. if you compare the potential revenue loss to a slip/fall or icing up a big hp pump etc, it makes sense to err on the side of caution. besides, aren't there always plenty of projects that can get done while in shutdown mode? for us it was installing a rubber berm in the touchfree bay that keeps water from flowing out onto the entry pad.
 
Sorry about that, I'm transferring everything over from GoDaddy to Sectorlink for my hosting and things are taking longer than anticipated because of GoDaddy jerking me around.
 
Make sure you check the water flow to your farthest bays.
Without the tips in you might have more water flowing out of the bays near your equipment room.
 
Oh how I love Winter especially when all of the damn power goes out at the wash because the power substation down the street decides to blowup and nobody is alerted via text or phone call! power went out at 12:28 a.m. not restored till 6:16 a.m.
 
Little late but if you have a lot of freeze up damage see if you have "Businesss Interruption Insurance."

New comers to our industry should make sure to have Business Interruption Insurance.
 
My truck bay was froze this morning for the second time this winter. Does anybody run a manual bypass to problem bays so you can turn water on to that bay 100% of the time when temps gets this cold? Running 100% for a day for 1 bay is 180 gallons. Much easier to pay $2.00 in water used v/s climbing up a ladder 14' in the air to take the hose down in -8° temps this evening....I've never had any of the three inside bays freeze. Just trying to think outside the box for the truck bay since its outside in open air. I'm sure the wind had something to do with it and how fast the temp dropped. It was 50° at 10:30 last night...Less than 10° at 6am....
 
In 45 years in the carwash business, we have never made money or happy customers in near -0- weather. Never. Shut it down. Settle down. Relax. Tomorrow is another day! (or the day after, depending) Mark
 
mmurra I agree 100%.
It also limits the exposure of getting hurt and frustration trying to fix everything that froze and broke in freezing weather.
Since 1977 I can't remember how many times I slipped off a ladder that had ice on it.
 
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