You do not want to build a self-serve, the ROI is poor. Express Exterior or Flex-Serve is what you want to look at. As far as recycling water, it’s not unusual for a municipality to require water recycling and in most cases you would want to recycle water to cut down on your water costs. Let me know if you want to move forward, I can get you connected with someone from our company who covers NY. What part of NY are you in?
I partially agree, partially disagree. This very much depends on the individual local market. For instance, I have a friend with a 6 bay all self service that nets 300k a year after paying a full time staff member, in a high traffic, middle class income neighborhood, granted he is there all the time, all up to date, and takes great care of his customers. I have seen others with mixed self serve, and IBA, mostly absent owners that net around 120-150k in a major city. Where I live, I am working on buying a wash that has 2 fully loaded IBAs, and 3 self serves that need things like card readers and cosmetic improvements still. This place nets around 180k, with so much unmet demand and potential for growth. While I do feel that automatic washes are no doubt the highest money maker, a person should know and understand their target market. Where I live, it's a small town with lots of lifted trucks, and retired people with their nice sports cars...they LOVE washing themselves, and love a feature rich self serve bay....not to mention the trucks have no choice....only they do occasionally have to be told about excess mud rules..lol. Just be advised that it is up to the owner to know what they are offering and understand the demand in the area. and to reiterate...all of those numbers are nets. The smallest gross of the aforementioned figures was the absent owner one which was around $250k
