Clean Up Time HELP 101

OK I give up, I have to just accept the fact that our newly aquired SS 6 bay car wash is in a Dirty Muddy Pick Up clientel area. We get trashed every day. Muddy Bays that take for ever to clean up. I am wearing out my shovel :)
I have a good flat shovel and then I use the presssure hose to clean the mess into the mud traps BUT the area has clay/sand and the clay sticks and the sand bounces around like little beads. It takes forever to get it all into the pits.
Surely some one has devised a unique way to clean up. I preferre a regular hose over the higher pressure. The hose doese not send the sand and bits flying accross the bay and out like the pressure wand doese but getting the hose out and hooking it up is a pain. What I need is a rollaway hose for cleaning, built into each bay wall :)
I spent hours today cleaning up after 4 wheelers and pick up. There seems to be a big Mudding Communitee around our wash :) And then the boats, so far I havent had to deal with dead fish but its just a matter of time .
So my question is this.Any clean up tricks, How about those water brooms I see in the catalogs, do they work. Also how do you clean up the parking lot.
I hate to keep just using the hose as water is metered :(
I'm thinking gasaline blower and blowing the parking lot before the hose.
OK thats enough you get the drift. Let me hear how you guys deal with it.
Thanks and I hope you all have had a great holiday :)

Cowboy up! This business involves lots of cleanup. Figure out what works best for you and just implement the plan. If it's a coiled low pressure hose for the ss bays, then just do it!

When I get a very muddy bay, I clean the mess like this: start with a flat shovel and wheelbarrow for the first pass, then rinse walls and floor with HP rinse. I can clean even the muddiest bay quickly this way.

And, yes, you should accept the fact that you will have to clean muddy bays, especially on days where you're pressed for time, on weekends and times when you really need to be somewhere besides at the carwash cleaning bays!

Yes we need to clean up after our customers but i also try to secure a certain consciousness with our customers who are making that sort of mess by asking them... Can you do me a favor??? Im gonna give you X amount of extra time...(evaluate approx clean up time)and can you please help me and wash down the bay when your done? We spend alot of time and energy keeping this a great wash for you and all our other customers after you and we really apprieciate your help!Or something like that...With some customers, now they dont even want me to give them time any more they feel responsible for the mess. I will still offer them a choice of any vending items if they like. Anyways if they decline to help, then I ask them to leave.Refund their money. I dont make enough on that sort of customer(down for clean up, labor and resourses for clean up and now youve made how much on that vend) and there are other washes (that I know are not as good)who will gladly take that sort of customer usage. And if they do take the time and dont clean up...well I have only had one and when i saw him the next time i unplugged his time and kicked him out. We just about threw down but I think my rightous anger rising up was far greater than his annoyance rith the loss of time and knowing I was right and he was caught. There is too much money time and efforts we put into our facilities to deal with people taking dumps in our bays...I dont know thats just me.

A push broom is a quick way to get the fine gravel rather than chasing it around the pit. I do a slot of sweeping rather than rinse whenever I can. The concrete was scored in 35 x 25' sections, and I'll sweep a half dozen of them a day which takes all of five minutes, sweeping each section from the edges into the center, then pick up the piles. I usually only have to rinse the entire lot once a week, which I do with a separate pump running 2000 PSI and a 2508 tip on a 30" lance.

Water brooms are more work than they're worth - rather than swinging a wand back and forth to clean a 10' wide path at a time, you'll be dragging a heavy hose back and forth across the concrete getting under your feet and in your way, and they have a tendency of shooting debris over where you just cleaned.

I the mud is deep enough to shovel it up that's what I do. I usually cart my mud to the dumpster. Seems to me it is extra work to rinse it into the pit only to have to dig it out later.

I have a billy goat that makes quick work of truck bed washout.

As Scott Bowen has indicated, some operators (including myself) are becoming less tolerant of mudders, truck bed washers, and assorted mess makers. For me there is little (if any) profit in that sort of business. Depends on your area and business model I guess. My labor cost me about .20/ minute If someone spends five bucks to knock off some mud my profit before labor is 3.00, if I pay someone to clean up for fifteen minutes I have broken even. I guess I could make it up on volume, right :)

Greg Pack Whats a billy Goat :) ????

At my wash and detail shop I'm the cleanup guy. I think I'm just too new at the carwash biz to be chasing off mudders. I keep my place nice and neat and yes, I often sweep up and rinse bays several times a day.

I get exasperated sometimes, but then I remember that dirty bays are getting used and keeping them clean is part of my job. Nice, neat, tidy bays are often dry bays! I want all the business I can get.

In a perfect world, all the customers would come once or twice a week and dust the car off, spending alot and leaving little mess. Maybe the carwashes in the afterlife will be like this.

In my world, a carwash gets used, messy, dirty and I clean it up. And I also clean tokens out of the coinboxes!

Surely if I see people abuse my wash I speak up, but if guy with a mudder comes in and makes a mess, my philospohy is that I can make a potentially huge amount of $$ off him in his lifetime of frequenting my carwash and detail shop. But if I chase him off or get into a shouting match, he's gone and all future earnings from this customer are zero.

Luckily we have few mudders, but I had to run off one. He'd come in every day just to knock off mud, literally. I kept seeing a bunch of mud in a bay with the same style tread marks leaving, enough mud to leave the bay unuseable. When I finally caught them, one guy was spraying, the other was using the foam brush head to knock the big clumps out of the fenders. They were trashing the bay and spending only the start-up price.

If I'm at the wash and someone's cleaning a muddy truck, when they're finished I ask them if they'd let me clean around their tires before they pull out so it won't track across the lot, then my cleanup is much easier. My hope is that they'll realize if they spend 30 seconds doing that themselves, they won't sling mud back onto their fenders on their way out.

http://www.billygoat.com/site/intro.aspx?pid=71

Many people believe that carwash owners just sit around watching tv, fishing, hunting, playing golf and going on vacation. And once in a while they have to go and empty thier load of cash from thier always busy carwashes.

Gteg.Doese the bill goat vacuum the asphalt parking lot well. We have a lot of sand from ???? you would think we where on the coast hehe. Any idea on the cost of a Billy Goat ?

What about designating one bay as " featuring mud-buster" bay. I understand this would take a little equipment revising, but switch the presoak in the mudbuster bay to a special presoak meant to break down mud/clay and label the selector switch from pre-soak to mud-buster.

You might be able to isolate your mud problems to one bay and increase your sales by having the customer buy more time using the mudbuster along with the high pressure spray. Once the customer (and you) sees how well mudbuster dissolves large clumps of mud, they may be more inclined to use it. It will definately make it easier for you to clean the bay.

What do you think?

I think thats a great idea, especially since a lot of us conveyor guys refer all the muddy trucks to a SS before we will wash... :-/ I know i'm not the only one who does this either hehe

I've seen others run a bay designated for heavy mud, and they've told me that unless they watch and enforce it, most of the customers don't care which bay you want them to use. A better presoak or a pressure boost function might solve the problem.

I tried it...maybe not long enough. Had a higher pressure mud bay with a ball valve you could open to spray through a rolling chassis wand. Didn't help much. It always seemed like the muddy trucks would pick the cleanest bay to destroy.

As far as the billy goat and sand- I don't have much sand to test it on around here. But for the little bit people dump out of their floorboard after a trip to the beach it works fine. The billy goat works best with light debris: leaves, pine bark, trash, etc. It will vacuum up cans too. It does not work well with rocks stones, or mud. Dirt will create a dust cloud. I use it around my vac islands and around the interior of the curbs daily. I can also clean up a truck bed washout of landscape debris in five minutes. You can find them on ebay a lot cheaper than they are new. If you are a "blow and go" operator, just coming by the wash to get the big stuff up and pick the cans off the ground, you won't use it. But if you like to run the cleanest facility possible it is a valuable tool.

We get the mud, gravel and straw. I tell customers, if I catch them, to pull up a little further in the bay next time so they don't blow the stuff into the lot. Sometimes they ask for a broom or shovel to clean it up. Most people will understand the frown on your face when you walk up and offer to clean up a little - at least the customers in my area do. If I get a little upset and I have once in awhile then I apologize before they leave commenting that it gets tough at times to stay up with the messes left in the bays. I have even offered to turn on the bays so the customers could clean it themselves - and some have. Don't let the customers leave on a bad note - especially the younger generation. We are a vulnerable business - open 24 hours a day. They can come back to get even. Self serve has always had the reputation of spray and go - knock off the heavy stuff. Customers don't anticipate coming into a self serve then having to clean up a mess for the few dollars they spent. This is our business. It can be dirty, cold, wet, aggravating, time consuming and unfair at times.

Joe

www.crowncarwashinc.com

It seems that some of you have forgotten that our job is to clean dirty vehicles. I'm the owner of a 4 bay SS in East Texas redneck 4x4 pickup country and I welcome them all. I have a part-time clean-up person that comes in every evening about 7 PM and washes down everything. He uses a flat shovel and wheel barrow and dumps in a vacant lot next door that I also own. I generally work all day Sat myself doing maintenance and restocking chemicals, but since I do 50% of my business on Sat, I clean every bay every time they GET dirty. There is a 4 wheeler park near me and I have considered giving the concession stand attendant a $20 to hand out fliers that I welcome mudders. My bays are set at $1 for 3 1/2 minutes but I feel each mudder probably spends $4 to $8 before they leave. What I will NOT tolerate is livestock trailers washing hay and crap out of their trailers. I have signs up at every bay that states it is against a city ordinance to wash them. Technically I am right becase any municipality that accepts any federal or state grant money must comply with the rules that say no animal waste can be put into city sewer systems. My point is-quit bitching and enjoy the business.

Ragman

If you get mostly mudders, then your clientéle is different from mine. I don't get many mudders at all, and after someone has wrecked a bay no one else will use it. I don't run them off, but I try to get them to realize that ours is a nice, generally clean facility, and I want to keep it that way rather than spend all my time shoveling mud.

I enjoy the business just the way it is, thankyouverymuch. If you don't like my bitching, don't read my posts.

Ragman, we all have different business models that we must be happy with. If mud works for you then I'm happy for you. In a rural area I probably couldn't get by with my policies. Allowing big mess makers has worked for me in the past when I had lower cost facilities and cheap labor. But those days look like they're gone for me. I'm in upper middle class suburbs and have five women washing their car in heels for every mudder. Nicely dressed women will not tolerate a mess. We are on a fully developed outparcel and my neighbors do not appreciate a muddy river flowing down my lot into theirs either.

Even when I was a stupid kid I remember cleaning up after myself at a carwash. IMO, It's common courtesy.

Greg and MEP1, thank you for your comments. I can see your point of view and MEP1,I'm truely sorry if I offended you.

Ragman

FYI-the mud that is sent to the lot next is spread evenly in a low spot and has 0% run off

Hey guys, this is great info for my Cleaning Up 101 class :) Keep it comeing. As for my problems, It seems there are a lot of contractors in our area doing jobs . Plaster guys, Brick Masons, lots of Land Scapers.and dont for get the painters. So you see, just let your imaginations wonder a bit. yesterday a brick mason left the remains of a sand stone job, stones, sand, mortor, the day before that a painter finished up a house and brought the clean up to our bay #3. Horse or some critter was involved with todays mess.
I also have higher class high heeled customers and yuppies in Black Sports cars learning about no spot rinse. Its hard to tell myself I need these Bay Pigs but maybe I do.
Real funny thing happened today. I bought a new 100 foot hose to clean the bays. The high pressure lines just shoot the stuff out the bay all over the place . I paid $50.00 for this Really great proffessional Commercial hose. It fell apart , literaly in 2 hours use. I returned it and got a store credit :( I have never trashed a hose that fast. I cannt beleive the guys that build car wash's. All the corners of the building are Anti Hose friendly, The bays barely slanted so they dont drain fast enough, the pump house floor doese not drain properly. There are no out side hose bibs. After just a short time I could design a better car wash. But its what I got and I sure aint building another one hehe.
Thanks for the help, keep it coming I need it.
I cleaned a vacuum for the first time today. Must have been at least a year since it was cleaned. Man was I dirty, I shook the bags forgetting to close the lower door :( yuk, We do learn dont we hehe.
Tomorrow another vacuum, one per day, clean, service, rebag, re-seal and polish will have them done in no time, Doese any one know if Lung Cancer has been common amoung SS car wash owners :(

Allen you probably need to clean vacs every 1-2 weeks. As you may have figured out by now, close the lower door, bang the bags, and and let it sit a few more minutes. When you re-open the door and a lot of the dust will have settled.

Another good trick is to insert your arm into a garbage bag. Then, grab the brush with the bagged arm. . This gives you a nice disposable plastic sleeve all the way up to your shoulder.

Most washes don't have outside hose bibs. Too many people will use it to fill buckets and wash themselves.

I set up another high-pressure pump and bought a hose reel and 250' of HP hose for cleaning the lot. All the concrete is about half an acre, and I can rinse it all in about 45 minutes. I used a Cat 5CP2120W turning probably a little faster than its peak rating, a 2508 tip on a 30" lance and run it at about 1800 PSI. It was pricey, but it saves a lot of time over using a garden hose, and I can get the lot much cleaner.

If you have standard 18" diameter vacs, the rubber cleanout tubs make fast and mostly neat work of the vac cleanout. I switched all out bags to the Adams style that have a spring band that snaps tight into the opening instead of having to pull the bag up from the bottom and thread the eye-bolts through the top. I used stainless steel keychain snap-hooks at the top, so the bags can be changed in a couple of minutes. They're a different material and don't trap much dust, and a quick shake gets them clean, no need to reach up inside and brush them out. I only need to change them if they've gotten wet.

Acouple of great ideas there guys. How about using one of the bay cat pumps and valving it to a hose real like you mention ?????
As for the bag on the arm trick, Well DU I woul dhave never thought of that hehe Thanks, I will use that trick today.

A long bay hose hook-up is still faster than a garden hose and will use less water, but when I was doing that it would take an hour to clean just half the lot, and there wasn't enough pressure to get at "stubborn stains" like a mark left by a burnout or a spot of tar or grease, or even a melted crayon. The main reason I set up the extra pump was to run a spinning surface cleaner, and the employee who wanted it would hardly ever use it. (He quit because he thought I took the hand truck, which he left outside and was stolen)

I just use one of the bay pumps to power my pressure washer. I have a hose reel on the wall and have two ball valves I turn to re-route the water to the reel. I just used what I had on hand. You could get fancy and install a manual or electric three way valve. Doesn't do great but much better than a garden hose. I have a gas powered pressure washer and surface spinner I will occasionally bring out for thorough cleanings.