You need to keep your fleet of trucks clean but worry about the expense. For many projects, doing it yourself is the cheapest solution but not with washing your fleet, especially if you want to do it right. Washing the trucks in house is not worth the hassle or the money.
Doing it yourself means either building your own wash bay or hand-washing each truck. Here’s why you want to use professionals.
Washbay Costs
If you are considering building a wash bay on your property, think again. The costs for using an existing building range from $150,000 to $400,000 for equipment while starting from scratch, you could pay close to $1 million.
As with any machinery, parts breakdown. Pieces burst, brushes get dull, cleaner needs to be refilled. Add those unknown costs to your bottom line, including service visits from the wash unit company. Sometimes the unit will need to shut down until it can be fixed. Meanwhile, trucks are getting dirty and you are paying for a wash unit you can’t use.
In addition, your staff costs increase. Someone needs to drive the trucks through and park them, manage the wash schedule and maintain the equipment. Depending on the size of your fleet, that could be a full time job.
Power Wash Damage
A wash bay is expensive but pressure washing is a lower cost alternative, right? Perhaps, if you have experienced pressure washers on staff. It is easy to damage trucks if the pressure is too high, something people new to pressure washing find out the hard way. You still need to purchase the pressure wash equipment, brushes, detergent, safety equipment, and more.
Water costs
Regardless if you build your own wash bay or use a pressure washer, you still need to deal with the water runoff. The federal government regulates wastewater to keep people from dumping contaminated water into sewer systems. The equipment used to recover wash water onsite can cost from $1,000 to $15,000, depending on how aggressively you want to recover the water. You will also have to pay the city a wastewater fee for treatment. And if you get fined for not doing a good enough job? Well, depending on how many months you are charged for contamination, the fine could be a couple thousand to tens of thousands of dollars.
Off-site Wash Locations
You can use off-site wash locations, but the costs are still more than having us come to you. Besides the wash-per-truck price, you also pay for driver time and gas to get there and back. This takes time out of the day and use of the truck/trailer, and you just don’t know how good the wash will be. You are also leaving the washing up to when the driver has time to get it done, rather than scheduling it yourself.
Hire Steamaway to Come To You
When you hire Steamaway® to wash your fleet, you receive the best cleaning with the lowest overhead to your company. We are available to come to your truck location 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We can clean any size vehicle, both inside and out, as well as detailing, upholstery steam cleaning, aluminum brightening and more. It won’t cost you gas or wages: all you pay for is the wash.
As our client, we listen to what you need and do our best to deliver. Our water recovery program is in line with state and national guidelines, so you don’t have to worry about having the work done on your property. We wash your fleet while it is idle, but sometimes a truck or two are out on a job – they can come by our stationary wash bay to get clean.
Having a clean fleet is great for your business and hiring Steamaway® to do the cleaning is great for your bottom line.
Looking for the most convenient way to clean your fleet? Call us at 1-888-397-8326. We will work around your schedule.
