does anyone know/heard about

[Guest 3lo]

Does anyone know or heard about a mobile truck washing business? Me and my friend want to start one, but i figured that we need to invest around 15k each in it. Guys i need you input on this one.

Anything regarding insurance, permit, and anything else. Oh and most important... will i survive doing just that since most trucks/trailers are parked only weekends but some available during the week.

Cheers.

[John Bacon]

Wouldn't you be required to re-capture the water and either recycle it or treat it. I don't think that a commercial cleaner would just be allowed to let the water run into a store sewer. I know that Toronto had considered making it illegal to wash your car in your own driveway for that reason.

[ohhenrygsr]

Don't you love it when you HAD a great Idea and then the rules that make it suck. i Sure did

[OhioFisherman]

I am in the states and was a truck driver, no idea on the EPA regs now it has been 6 years since I worked. I was a city driver 35 city delivery trucks that were parked at the terminal at the end of every day. The company contracted with a mobile unit to wash them like once a month. They usually had it done on Saturdays and I wasn`t there to see what hoops they had to jump thru to meet the laws.

 

A lot of road drivers are owner operators, some truck stops have a truck wash, T/A has one near here at their place off of I-71 and state route 224.

 

Some do it your self washes here will handle a tractor, one in Lorain Ohio. Just higher ceiling so you can safely pull the tractor inside, but no room for a trailer. Just not enough room to get in.

 

A lot of the owner operators just do it themselves when they get home. Company drivers generally won`t pay to have it done unless they get compensated for it and that doesn`t happen at many.

 

30k seems like a big investment with out a sure income from it and I am guessing with the economy one of the first things the companies and owner operators cut back on is washes. If fuel spikes up again they will cut back even more.

[bigugli]

Two Fingers truck wash diversified considerably from the original idea. I guess not enough income from the one business line. They now include water haulage, irrigation, road wash, etc... They use tankers which would put you well over the $30K investment.

[Ramble]

You can do it if the market is their, but you need to expand past trucks. My uncle does the mobile wash thing. Pretty much anything thing you can think of he has hit with that pressure washer.

 

Not sure what the regs say for it.

 

-Dave

[POLLIWOGG]

Its a 2 or 3 hundred thousand fine under the fisheries act to introduce something into the water that harms fish. So yah it's already illegal if the wash water gets to a storm drain.