RoofTop Troughs: To Heat or Not To Heat ?

As my Self-Serve Bays lay empty with frozen foam brushes and triple foam guns, I am wondering if heating the trough on the roof is of any use .Has anyone done this ?

In the new england most have heat or they will be frozen. Most use a 6 gal electric heater, some use heat cable, some come off the floor heat.

Heating the trough will not always prevent freeze ups. I find usually the first place I have a feeezing problem is outside the trough where the hoses come out in the bay.

As far as chosen method,it is to some extent regional. Operators in the deep south have hard freezes so infrequently that many just weep their foam brushes if their water and sewer are cheap. Anti freeze solutions are also an possibility, but it is expensive, and if you just dealing with overnight freeze ups it's probably not the best choice. There are some systems designed to purge the lines of the regular solution and then inject a small amount of antifreeze solution. It is a little costlier to set up but could have the lowest operating costs over the long run.

I know one guy who did not instal triple foam because he did not want to weep it. As far as Foam brushes go, when I was new to the business it took me a year before i learned of anti freeze FB soap. We now switch to that when freezing temps are expected AND we weep the FB as well as the wands. Since we are a natural gas area we have a 30 Gallon water heater with an antifreeze mix and expansion tank with circulater pump circulating thru pex tubing in the trough. The pump is connected to a thermostat and only runs when it;s below freezing. Doesn't cost much to let the heater run all winter because when it's not circulating it costs little to keep the tank warm.

I've had two anti freezing systems in my washes in the foam brush system. One was a 90 second purge with methanol when temp hit 34 degrees and then system transferred over to soap/methanol solution. Once it went above 34 it went back to regular soap. So two drums were required - one with regular solution and the other with a methanol solution. I heated my trough with a residential water heater. Used a procon pump to circulate the water (closed loop system) through the trough. The water heater was acting as a boiler. I have also used the windtax system - which is also a very good system. Its a hose within the foam brush hose that has hot water circulating throughout the sytem. Heating the trough only will not help with hoses once they leave the trough.Keeping the hoses thawed in the bay require the methanol other system (hose within a hose) to keep it thawed.