Mark Ellis is a second generation carwasher who currently operates five conveyor carwashes (Southland Auto Wash) with full-serve, detail and express offerings in and around Grand Rapids, Michigan, along with his son Sean, now representing the third generation. Because of the great lakes, Michigan may seem far removed from the issue of drought, but in the summer of 2008, at least 46 Michigan counties were affected in some degree by a drought that swept through the state.

According to data from the Michigan Department of Agriculture, the state was also affected by heavy rain, flooding and considerable frost/freeze; a virtual trifecta of poor carwashing conditions.

But Southland has persevered, and continued to improve their processes. Thanks to efficient water management, Southland has reduced operational costs and is able to process high wash volumes during good wash weather. These best practices have helped them maintain and grow a healthy business even when the chips were down.

Southland practices water management at all five of their locations, but we will focus on the Southland Auto Wash near Woodland Mall, in Grand Rapids Michigan, as a case study. Southland purchased the 37-year-old carwash in 2005, after it had been blown up when “a little old lady ran into the gas meter.” As Ellis explained, no one was hurt, but the building was leveled. Southland purchased what was left — the property and foundation — and built a similar-sized but ultra modern carwash in its place.

In addition to its high tech water management system, the Woodland site features skylights the length of building, a galvanized metal roof, ultra high-efficiency boiler, variable frequency drives, and three automated tellers which utilize RFID tag readers and fast pass technology.

The 180’ Hodge conveyor has a trench designed to self clean and drain into a two stage sand/settling pit with adjustable height sanitary sewer overflow. Up to 98 percent of the sand and solids settle into the first two pits which are then pumped out by a sewer cleaning vac-truck twice a year. These two pits also use a turned-down flow through pipe which forces oils to stay in the pit, thus accomplishing the task of an oil separator. Any built-up oil can be skimmed off the top of these pit sections. The water then flows into a series of three 2-compartment baffled tanks, providing almost 8,000 gallons of water tankage.

“This creates essentially six more compartments for the water to settle out any solids and stop moving,” Ellis explained. The wash then relies on an engineered water reclaim system to pump out of the last tank. The system pumps directly through a pair of hydro-cyclones which take out remaining solids bigger than 12-15 microns. Those solids are then returned through a drain line to the conveyor trench. The reclaim system circulates filters and treats the tanked water 24 hours a day, maintaining extremely high water quality.

This system also routes the water through an advanced oxidation chamber, where it is treated with a very effective process that removes the chemistry from the water, “which ultimately keeps bio-degradation from taking place inside the pipes,” said Ellis. Southland is able to filter and use nearly 200 gallons per minute with no residual odor and very good water clarity.

The Woodland site utilizes a high volume, high pressure washing system which requires between 150-175 gallons per minute of the reclaimed water to wash a vehicle. The nozzles are “very well directed and effective,” Ellis said, and follow the entire vehicle, from the door handles down, including a following wheel washer and side/corner blasters to penetrate ice and snow in the wheel wells and on the lower body. These nozzles are also directed at the nose through the rear license plate, front, back and top of the vehicle.

Using electronic pressure sensing technology, the wash attendant can select one of three pressure settings for each pump. This allows Southland to offer their customers who have a pinstriped car or convertible top a gentle cleaning, yet they can also effectively clean an icy, snowy or muddy car. The pumps for this system are directly fed with filtered reclaimed water and plumbed through a check valve so that if the reclaim system loses pressure, a reserve system holding city water automatically takes over.

The high pressure rinsing system is just prior to the last mitting curtain. It is fed from a tank which captures the reject water from the Reverse Osmosis System which produces water for a spot-free final rinse. The reject water from RO production is saved for reuse along with the reject water from the RO carbon filter system backwash; this re-use tank is also backed up by city water in case the volume can’t keep up on a high production day.

In addition to these high volume water efficiencies Southland also uses filtered reclaimed water for sprinkling its landscaping.

Filtered reclaimed water is also used for chemical applications. Southland filters and reclaims over 90% percent of the wash’s water. “We believe that this is good stewardship of the natural resources, even though we live in Michigan where water is plentiful,” Ellis explained. “Generally speaking, we see a two-year payoff in direct water and sewer savings in our reclaim system investments.”