Heavy equipment washing

Why the machine gets washed where it sits

Heavy equipment is the definition of work that cannot come to you. An excavator is not driving across the province to get cleaned, and taking a haul truck off the face for a day costs more than the wash. So we are mobile. We load up, we drive to the site, and the machine is cleaned where it is parked.

That is the whole reason O'Brien's has been set up this way since 1997. Bring the wash to the machine, not the machine to the wash.

What we take off

• Packed quarry mud and clay in the tracks, the belly pan and the wheel wells
• Grease and hydraulic residue around pins, rams and fittings
• Road salt off anything that has been on the highway through a Nova Scotia winter
• Dust and fines off glass, lights, mirrors and decals so the operator can see out
• Build up around service points, so the mechanic is not chiselling before he starts

The machines we get called for

Excavators, wheel loaders, dozers, rock trucks and articulated haul trucks. If it works in a pit, on a road build or on a site, we have had a wand on one. Undercarriage and tires are usually the worst of it and usually the part that matters most, because that is where the mud sets up hard and stays wet.

Before the inspection, the sale, or the mechanic

Three times we get called most: something is going in for inspection, something is going up for sale, or something is going into the shop. All three go better on a clean machine. An inspector can see the steel. A buyer can see what they are buying instead of assuming the worst. And a mechanic bills you for the repair instead of an hour of scraping.