IBA Gallons Per Car

[Dirt]

I never really paid much attention to this before. The water and sewer bills seemed reasonable, so I just paid them. That was with my first Ryko Softgloss for 18 years. I've had my Maxx 5 for just about a year now, and the usage seemed to be about the same.
Business has picked up the last couple of months, which I'm happy about, so I expected the bills to be higher. But I don't know, the latest water company bill said I used 97,000 gallons. So now, I'm conducting some surveillance on this situation. Recording meter readings every day. Dividing it by number of cars washed. Call the water company to see the exact day it was read...

Do any of you guys know how much your machines use ?

There are a lot of factors involved in tracking this, especially having 2 bays of self service. Friction or touchless, wash packages, size of car, Customer speed habits of going over undercar rinse, etc. I'm not sure, but I would think a touchfree would use more than a friction.

When I watch the meter with only the automatic running, and the bays empty, this is what I see.

Smallest wash package: Wash and rinse only - 50 to 55 gallons.
Largest : Undercar, HP wheel blast and rinse, 4 wax passes ( colorwave, rinse, rainshield, clearcoat ) - 95 to 110 gallons.

I know it is what it is. The machine does a great job of application and rinsing, so I'm not going to change nozzle sizes. Although I did put smaller tips in the undercar.

Does this amount of usage sound reasonable for a friction machine ?

 

[washnshine]

I never really paid much attention to this before. The water and sewer bills seemed reasonable, so I just paid them. That was with my first Ryko Softgloss for 18 years. I've had my Maxx 5 for just about a year now, and the usage seemed to be about the same.
Business has picked up the last couple of months, which I'm happy about, so I expected the bills to be higher. But I don't know, the latest water company bill said I used 97,000 gallons. So now, I'm conducting some surveillance on this situation. Recording meter readings every day. Dividing it by number of cars washed. Call the water company to see the exact day it was read...

Do any of you guys know how much your machines use ?

There are a lot of factors involved in tracking this, especially having 2 bays of self service. Friction or touchless, wash packages, size of car, Customer speed habits of going over undercar rinse, etc. I'm not sure, but I would think a touchfree would use more than a friction.

When I watch the meter with only the automatic running, and the bays empty, this is what I see.

Smallest wash package: Wash and rinse only - 50 to 55 gallons.
Largest : Undercar, HP wheel blast and rinse, 4 wax passes ( colorwave, rinse, rainshield, clearcoat ) - 95 to 110 gallons.

I know it is what it is. The machine does a great job of application and rinsing, so I'm not going to change nozzle sizes. Although I did put smaller tips in the undercar.

Does this amount of usage sound reasonable for a friction machine ?

I have a tunnel, not and IBA, but that does sound a bit high for friction. Again, I don’t have that machine.

 

[MGSMN]

Does this amount of usage sound reasonable for a friction machine ?

We went through the same situation about a year ago. If I recall, those numbers look close to what I found also. Like you said there are so many variables involved so I averaged what the meter reading was over one week and then one month and divided by number of cars washed. This accounted for all the water used on site (softener, R/O, cleaning the bays, bathroom, ect). On a slow rainy day I also took a meter reading then washed my car to get a usage number for each wash package. I also measured how much spot free water was being applied. I will see if I still have those numbers somewhere. The water usage on our Ryko Radius (Hi Impact) touch free machines were only slightly higher then the Softgloss friction machines.

 

[MGSMN]

Dirt, I came across the numbers for our SoftGloss and Radius HT High Impact. The Softgloss on the top wash used 148 gallons on my my vehicle, the Radius used 158 gallons. This was a reading straight from the meter before/after. 119 gallons per car was the average after washing 397 cars in the two auto bays. The three self serve bays were in use at this time but I didn't track how many people used them in that time period so the average is a bit lower then the 119 gallons per car for the auto bays.

 

[jubalr]

Dirt, I came across the numbers for our SoftGloss and Radius HT High Impact. The Softgloss on the top wash used 148 gallons on my my vehicle, the Radius used 158 gallons. This was a reading straight from the meter before/after. 119 gallons per car was the average after washing 397 cars in the two auto bays. The three self serve bays were in use at this time but I didn't track how many people used them in that time period so the average is a bit lower then the 119 gallons per car for the auto bays.

Wow, I hope the average is a LOT lower. I have been tracking mine for 2 years now. Every month I track all utilities and get my average per car. I have 2 IBAs at my location, a soft touch and a touchless. Water use is total water including RO & soft water regen, prep barrel and bay wash downs.
Every month the usage per car is very consistent and averages 65-69gal per car. Total of all utilities averages $1.22 per car.

 

[soapy]

First thing I would do is check your meter for accuracy. Take a 55 gallon drum and fill it with water while watching your meter. I once had a brand new city water meter that read 3X the actual water usage. No way a friction should be using the amount of water you mention.

 

[Dirt]

Thanks Soapy. I'm going to do the water meter test.
MGSMN, why do you think your softgloss uses that much more water than mine ? The 2 machines have to be nearly identical. Soapy, didn't I see sonewhere that you have a Ryko also ?

 

[soapy]

My Rykos are touchless.

 

[OurTown]

Dirt, I came across the numbers for our SoftGloss and Radius HT High Impact. The Softgloss on the top wash used 148 gallons on my my vehicle, the Radius used 158 gallons. This was a reading straight from the meter before/after. 119 gallons per car was the average after washing 397 cars in the two auto bays. The three self serve bays were in use at this time but I didn't track how many people used them in that time period so the average is a bit lower then the 119 gallons per car for the auto bays.

That sounds crazy high.

 

[Greg Pack]

I'm toying with membership and was about to figure my costs. water/sewer here is around 2.5 cents per gallon.

Does the softgloss pull from a water tank big enough to do one wash? If so, measure the dimensions and the depth of the water. Turn the water valve off and wash a car and measure the inches of drop and convert to gallons used. I think one cubic foot will hold 7.48 gallons. You can use that number to determine the amount of high pressure water used.


Another wildcard is RO reject- is it reused or sent down the drain?

 

[Here2Wash]

First thing I would do is check your meter for accuracy. Take a 55 gallon drum and fill it with water while watching your meter. I once had a brand new city water meter that read 3X the actual water usage. No way a friction should be using the amount of water you mention.

Hi Soapy what did you do to resolve this? I just got a brand new meter and they said I've used 64,000 gallons around 2,300 a day! It is going to put me out of business as this cannot be true.
How did you prove to the city that the meter was wrong? Did they actually listen? Please help!

 

[Rapidoil]

@Here2Wash
You didn't mention what kind of wash you have but lets say if you had a conservative IBA using 50gallons per car then 2300/50 is 46 cars. I think most IBA's use way more water than that. For perspective I don't own a wash but I am working on it. Maybe some others with way more knowledge then me will chime in.

 

[Roz]

A Washworld razor will use 35-70 gals per package depending on the number and type of passes.

 

[Ryko CS]

Dirt, those numbers sound high, but as others have mentioned there are a lot of variables that come into play. Machine setup including wash/rinse speeds, how the packages are configured, length of vehicle being washed, etc. Usually for a basic wash I'd expect somewhere around 35 gallons, but for Works wash, could be closer to 60-65 gallons used depending on options. A touchfree machine like the Radius and others will typically be a little higher, but not a lot.

 

[soapy]

My city had a certified meter. They took my meter a.nd hooked it in line with their certified meter to verify amount of water. When you are slow take a 55 barrel or two and run your own test and see if it is very far off. Then approach the city. Another thing to check is to see if the city uses a multiplier for the meter. Some meter amy not rea din gallons but rather in cubic feet. CIty will take the cubic feet and mutliply it by a factor to get the gallons. the wrong multiplier could mistate the actual gallons.