Tips from the Pros

The participants are:

• Joe Kozlowski — Owner of Sammy’s Lube Express and Carwash, an express tunnel location with five self-serve bays located in Windham, ME.
• Rodney Goldberg — Owner of Diamond Sparkle Car Wash in Colchester, CT, an express tunnel location with three self-serve bays and three detail bays.
• Joe Telesco — Manager of Nutley Car Wash, a full-serve facility located in Nutley, NJ.

Kozlowski

The big thing that I always pay attention to is the heating system. It is important to make sure that the anti-freeze levels meet the freeze temperature requirements. When you do the test it will tell you what you are rated for, up here in Maine we have to be rated for zero degrees. Depending on the area you are in, you want to make sure that the rating of the anti-freeze in the system meets the requirements of your area, and make any additions to the anti-freeze level before winter.

In the self-serve bays we make sure all of the guns and the weep system are working properly. If you don’t inspect the equipment, the morning after the first freezing night you might be kicking yourself because everything is frozen up.

Make sure that all the valves are all open on the weep system and that all of your guns have the weep donuts in them. Also, make sure that you are using weep guns versus non-weep guns. That is the biggest thing, you might have had some repairs done and weep parts might have been replaced with non-weep parts — you have to check.

It is important to have a routine, and to follow it every year. Make a list of all the things you are going to check and check them.

Goldberg

With the self-serve bays make sure the trough heater and the weep system are on and operational. Pay special attention to the weep solenoid in the weep system.

For the tunnel we make sure that we run the hydraulic heater everyday for an hour in the morning, and check the heating system periodically for basic maintenance problems.

It is also important to inspect the overhead doors before the winter starts: check the cables, chains, and the bearings.

Telesco

This past winter wasn’t that bad. When you don’t have a severe winter sometimes you tend to forget how you should prepare for it. It is important to get everything ready to go for the worst-case scenario.

One of the most important things to check before the winter starts is the wind doors.

The rollers are the biggest concern with the door. Some people, when they buy doors don’t spend the extra money for stainless steel parts. Stainless steel is a necessity because of the constant wear. The only way you are going to get something that is reliable is to use as much stainless steel for the moving parts as you can.