How many cars have been washed.

[dynomonkey]

I've been looking at some water bills for a prospect car wash and noticed it is using about 25000 gal of water a month. How many gal does it take to wash a car? The car wash is about 10years old so I know the equipment is not that efficient. Should I guess 10gal per car? 4gal?

 

[Jim L.]

That is not a lot of water. My SS pumps use 3.5 gal/min.
Doing the math: 25,000/3.5 X $.50/min (my price) = $3,571.53 per month.
Foamy brush, tire cleaner and spot free use less water, but this will give you a rough idea.

 

[UWash]

25,000 gal a month is nothing, in the winter months with utilizing a weep system in a northern climate and busy months with people washing there cars sometime daily because they want to remove the salt, snon and ice buildup. Right now (February) I'm using about 4,000-6,000 gals/day with 3 SS bays and 2 automatics. Thats about 120,000 - 180,000 gal/month. We are washing on average about 1,000 autos and 2,500 SS's per month in the winter months.

 

[JustClean]

I've been looking at some water bills for a prospect car wash and noticed it is using about 25000 gal of water a month. How many gal does it take to wash a car? The car wash is about 10years old so I know the equipment is not that efficient. Should I guess 10gal per car? 4gal?

Any recycling in place?

 

[BayWatch]

I used 140,000 gallons last month for a six bay and it snowed part of the month.

 

[dynomonkey]

That's what I thought also. It's a slow location and the owner does not keep good records. Looks like I'm walking away from this one. Their is no way to find out how much money this wash makes. It's a 5 bay with all SS on a .7 acre lot. 4 vacuums and hardly no vending. The price is right under 200, but the site might not even pay for the mortgage.

I'll have to check on the recycle thing. Would that make a BIG difference?

 

[MEP001]

If he's using reclaim, it will make a huge impact on the water use. It's very unlikely someone invested in a reclaim for a 5-bay SS unless it was built with the plan to expand with an IBA.

Jim L.'s guesstimate on income based on water usage is probably even a little optimistic. It's about impossible to get 50¢/minute in most parts of Texas. That's not to say that you can't improve the business and bring it up to $10-12,000 a month gross, but you're talking years of work.

Can you give the address of the wash? I've serviced hundreds of washes all over central Texas and can probably tell you if it has reclaim.