Yes it was just standard block that the building was built with, scrapped most of the old flaking paint off then painted over it. (i would have preferred to power wash all of it off but the cost of it would have been a bit much)
yes from what I've been able to find/research this was originally built as a 3 bay with 1 iba, then they added the far end 2 bays and made them all square block, removed the outer wall black to make the front pillars then overlaid the square along the back to make it look built that way. I really want to get my 5th bay open however the concrete has lifted on the entrances and has also washed out from under the floor and fallen into the pit. so ill have to repair all of that first.
Yes, for the most part everything has increased including public chatter about the wash. When i bought it it made 21k a year for the past 2 years and lost 14k both years. currently we are sitting at over 30k for this year alone and breaking even still. so that's a huge plus, means what we are doing is working. My hope is with more advertising and such people will start migrating to ours because we put out a superior product!
The wash tech i work with has a used laserwash 4000 we are gonna possibly through in the IBA next spring to get that at least making some extra money. ($50kish installed)
I've also increased my price as each upgrade was completed. for instance, when i took it over it was $1.25 for 4 mins. (most expensive in town other then one 5 mins up the road) i could not adjust this as all the timer boxes needed to be drilled out so i left it knowing i was replacing them asap anyway. once the new
coin boxes and CC swipers were installed i made it $1.50 for 4 mins. had some complaints but not really as most started using their cc anyway. (min $3) (still only really breaking even. Then we painted the building, replaced all the vac motors and hoses, replaced all the guns, and brushes once that was done i adjusted for $1.50 for 3.5 mins. (started to make about 500-$1000 profit a month. then we added the in bay dryers last. once installed we finalized our increase to $2 for 4 mins, and once my new vac stickers come in and are installed ill be upping our vacs from $.75 for 4 mins to $1 for 4. last few things i need to do is get more
vending or a mega vendor and just fill it that way. and get one vac either replaced or all new innards. (been broken since i bought it in front of the closed 5th bay)
I may be wrong but in the area im at with basically a 4bay ss, the current pricing, and set up we have, i think 2-3k profit a month is realistic until we get the iba up and running. Then im hoping for more. (thoughts on my numbers here) looks like we are washing just over 1,000 cars a month (as tracked by cryptopays counter) and vacs un sure, however we also have one of the only pay to vac setups in town other then the one 5 mins away)
One thing i do hate is my vac set up, i would like to demolish the islands and place them behind the bays as a pull up to vac then pull in to wash type set up? thoughts on this? or leave them random.
Lastly looking at parking lot repair options, either fix the concrete that's falling apart or black top it all... again making all these upgrades on small profit numbers right now so doing it all in small bits/ my hope is year 3 of ownership i wont have anything else to "upgrade" and can actually just make some money.
Now that winter is here in MI my floor heat is on so the power bill is about to jump to 12-1400 per month(usually about 2-300 in the summer so the price increases should help offset this year, last winter was just a break even.
other thoughts on what to add to increase profits or have i pretty much covered it all haha.