Self Serve at a marina?

[Turbo G]

Hi everyone. What a great forum you have here. I have spent the last few days tearing through the archives and have learned a ton!

We are thinking of adding a few self service bays to our marina to exist as sort of a car/boat was combination. I was thinking two 28' to 30' covered bays for cars and two larger, wider uncovered bays for the trailerable boats that come out of the water via the nearby (100 yards or so) ramp. Has anyone ever seen such a beast? The town is small (pop. 6000) but has car tourism and no major car wash competition, outside of a hand wash with a hose and an easy up.

Can a car and boat wash co-exist?
Will salt and marine by-product kill any hope of reclaim water?
Do people even build SS carwashes without an in bay automatic anymore?


Thanks for your time and response.

 

[Eric H]

I think the clean waters act might kill this. I think it says you need to be 300 feet away from any water. I had an issue with a site I looked at a number of years ago that had a brook running thru it. It is worth looking up or calling the local EPA to see if this will be a problem before you spend hours researching car washes.

 

[mac]

While the laws will surely vary, I can tell you what we did for a marina right on the Gulf of Mexico. We put basically a self serve setup right on the water so they could wash the boats before dry storage. Water disposal is the same as any other wash, with the exception of the open bays. Since the waste water goes to city sewer, we plumbed in a 3 way valve in the waste line. When the wash is in use, the valve directs the water to sewer, and when it shuts off, the water only goes to the storm drain. I would suggest covered bays only, with very high ceilings. If you're around FL, I'd be happy to discuss it with you.