How Often Should You Clean Your Car Wash Pits?

Maybe you run a successful car wash and you’ve gotten by with cleaning your car wash pits on an as needed basis. Maybe you are just getting a new car wash business going and need to figure out your costs for maintenance.

In either case, you will benefit from a proactive pit cleaning maintenance plan. Car wash pits do a big job of filtering out the dangerous chemicals and debris that would otherwise flow into the water supply. They deserve the necessary attention to keep them operating cleanly.

Developing a Proactive Maintenance Plan

Cleaning your car wash pits only when they become issue can be very costly. Once your drainage stops up, it is already too late to get to work. In addition to the cost of pumping out the pits, there is also the added downtime when the car wash will not be functioning.

Many car wash companies turn to their local septic cleaning companies to come in to clean the pits after they are too far gone. This can easily lead to seven to ten days of lost revenue in addition to the cost of the process itself. Beyond just profits, this looks bad to your customers who depend on you to wash their car when it needs washing.

Instead, plan on cleaning all of your bays once every twelve weeks or 3 to 4 times a year. Once you decide on when your operations will be down for cleaning. This way, you can plan ahead. You can plan for how to coordinate your staffing schedules and you can alert your regular customers a long time in advance to avoid any unforeseen frustrations.

The Pitfalls of Pit Cleaning

In addition to planning for when you will clean your car wash pits, it is important to determine how you plan to do it. Most car wash companies either pay for septic cleaning services to pump their pits or opt to pay large upfront costs to purchase pit cleaning equipment so they can do it themselves.

There are two disadvantages to hiring a septic cleaning company to clean your pits. Firstly, while they have the equipment to do an okay job, they don’t specialize in it. This means that they may not dispose of the hazardous waste legally and, if they do, they may be a lot more expensive. Secondly, they aren’t as fast as you may want them to be. When you stand to lose revenue while they do the cleaning, it’s money out of your pocket, not theirs.

Cleaning your car wash pits yourself has disadvantages also. There is the high initial cost of purchasing car wash pit cleaning equipment. There is the additional problem of putting time into learning how to do it yourself as quickly and cleanly as you can and training your staff to be able to do it too. It also makes for another piece of equipment that must be maintained, depreciates over time and needs to be replaced every so often. And to follow it all up, dealing with potentially hazardous waste and disposing of it yourself can be, at best, a hassle and, at worst, dangerous.

Hiring the Specialists

Here at Pit Crew, we know the concerns that you face as a car wash company. We service car washes all across the Atlantic and Midwest regions, from Iowa to Maryland, from Michigan to Georgia and everywhere in between. That’s why we specialize in cleaning your car wash pits as quickly as possible. Just like the pit crews in motorsports, we’ll get in, get you cleaned up, and get out so you can get your business back on the road. We clean your pits on a regular basis for less than your local septic cleaners so you can focus on keeping your car wash running smoothly.