floor heaters, & their use

As a complete novice I need to know how to look at the floor heaters and their use.
I have a 6 bay SS wash, do I let them all come on when its cold or is it commmon to close some bays and only heat the ones left open. How do you close of the bays you dont heat, with out doors. ? lots of questions, thanks for the help.

This is what I have done for years.
I have a timer connected to the thermostat. The thermostat
is only allowed to operate every 15 minutes. So in a 24 period the floor heat is only operating for 12 hours. The timer has cogs in it so I can really add or remove cogs as
I feel I want or need to. I never have any serious icing problems. The floor temperature sensor is set on 34 degrees. The other thing is do on really cold temps is spread salt along the base of the walls. As the salt melts any ice or snow that may be there then it oozes down to the drain. The salt will stay there for quite awhile. A friend of mine with 8 self serves has his floor going off at 11:00 PM and back on at 6:00 AM and then cyling during the day with a timer as per above. If you want to close off bays, then tie caution tape across the front or put an empty drum or a cone there.
If you want to always keep the floors completly free of any
ice then it will cost you alot of money.
Also, it is important that you put up sign that say something like: Use caution - may be slippery with ice or snow. There are differenct versions of a sign. If you have a fall then the sign will help to protect you.

Joe
www.crowncarwashinc.com

You can have a closed loop system or open loop system. I have both and prefer the closed loops sytem. With this type of system you do not have a direct water supply line hooked into the system. You have a small reservoir tank that holds extra antifreeze solution. The nice thing about a closed loop system is that if for some reason you develop a leak in the system and loose antifreeze it is not replaced without your knowing it. An open loop system will replace the lost antifreeze with water diluting the antifreeze. If it becomes too weak then the whole system could freeze and ruin you floors causing a very expensive replacment headache. I like to install a tube into the floor for the slab sensor. The tube needs to big enough to slide the slab sensor in and out of so that if the sensor goes bad it can be replaced without tearing up the concrete.