A feed-truck cleaning quote is usually late for one reason: the buyer describes the vehicle and the supplier has to guess the rest. Two identical tankers can be washed under opposite conditions — one on a concrete pad with a drain and a 220 V outlet ten metres away, the other on rough ground with no utilities, where the water has to arrive in a bowser and the power in a battery. Price follows the site and the duty cycle, not the shape of the truck.
The list below is what we ask for on every feed-transport enquiry. It is long, but every item changes which truck steam cleaning equipment we would propose, and several of them change whether we would propose a machine at all.
Where the washing actually happens
Send a plan of the pad: surface material, falls towards a drain or gully, the size of the drain and whether it takes oily rinse water. A wash bay that drains well lets you use wet steam and a rinse; a yard that ponds water will leave your crew finishing with a squeegee and a mop, which is labour nobody budgeted. If there is no drain and no permission to make one, say so at the start — that constraint points towards lower-water low-water steam cleaning equipment and a dry finish, not towards a bigger pump.
Give us the geometry as a driver sees it: aisle width to the wash position, gate height and width, the turning circle the vehicle must make, and whether the truck reverses in or drives through. A machine that fits in an open yard may not pass a doorway or a low beam. On our fixed Fixed Steam Cleaning Machine PowerDe HW02 the footprint is 1,200 × 800 × 1,200 mm including handles — a dimension you need to check against your gate before we quote it, not after it arrives.
Utilities on site, stated as facts
Power: socket voltage, the supply available at the wash position, the rating of the breaker, and the distance from the socket to where the lance is used. The HW02 runs on 220 V with a 6 kW heater, so an extension lead across a yard is not a detail — cable length and gauge decide whether the heater can run as intended. Where there is no supply at the position at all, a battery-fed unit is the honest answer, and we will say which of our mobile steam cleaning machine models are built that way instead of promising a fixed machine will stretch.
Water: is there a tap at the wash position, what fitting, and is the supply tap water or something else. Our machines take a tap-water inlet with a 4-point internal-tooth joint (1/2 inch on the HW02). If your water is a well or a recycled stream, tell us the hardness before quoting — scale in a heater is a running cost, and pre-treatment is cheaper specified now than retrofitted later. Water quality also decides the service interval you should be told about in the quotation.
What is on the vehicle, and how much of it
Describe the load residue: dry meal, dusty mash, molasses-coated surfaces, caked feed in the corners of a walk-out floor, residue in the auger or discharge chute. Dry dust and sticky syrup are different jobs and are handled with different modes — our mobile units list dry steam, wet steam and hot water, and the mode you need follows the soil, not the price. Photographs of the dirtiest truck after a typical run, taken from inside the tank as well as outside, settle this faster than any written description.
Specify what must be cleaned beyond the exterior: tank interior walls, the top ring and manhole lids, ladders and handrails, the chassis and mudguards, the discharge mechanism, the cab door sills. A quote that covers only the outside is not comparable with one that covers the inside, and inside cleaning is where cross-contamination between loads is actually controlled.
Vehicle construction and what must stay dry
Give the tank material and coating, the age of the fleet, and any painted, labelled or insulated surfaces. Old paint, lifting decals and lagging on insulated panels are lifted by heat and pressure, so those areas belong on an exclusion list in the method sheet before the first wash. State the electrical items near the wash zone — lamp clusters, wiring looms, connector boxes, the PTO or unloading controls — and how they are sealed or covered today.
Tell us whether any load or feed remains on board during washing. Washing around loaded bins is a different risk profile than washing an empty, swept-out tanker, and it changes what we will write into the method and what protective steps the crew needs.
Duty cycle: how many trucks, and when
Numbers we need, in your own words: trucks per day and per week, whether washing happens between every load or at the end of a run, and the minutes available per vehicle. A fleet that washes one tanker a day at a fixed bay and a depot that must clear six vehicles in one evening window are different machines and sometimes different power sources.
Say who does the work and how many people. One operator handling lance, hose and repositioning needs a machine that can be moved and parked by that person alone, and it needs the hose reach stated so they are not dragging the unit across the yard. Shift pattern, weekends, and whether the wash runs in winter matter too — cold ground, freezing rinse water and an unheated shed all affect drying time and what the crew can physically do.
Standards the wash has to satisfy
Tell us why the trucks are cleaned. Some loads move between farms and a biosecurity protocol sets the required evidence — a signed wash record, a defined dwell time, a photograph of the finished vehicle. Others are cleaned for product hygiene, where residues between consecutive feeds are the concern. Others again are cleaned to protect the asset. The reason decides whether you need a machine with a measured, repeatable process and a record, or a practical machine and a good method sheet.
If a customer, an auditor or an association will inspect the wash, send the wording of the requirement. A line such as "no visible feed residue, no standing water at the discharge" is testable; "clean" is not, and only the first kind can be written into a quotation and a method sheet without a dispute later.
Compliance, drainage and what you may change
State what you are allowed to do to the ground. Run-off from feed residue carries organic load, and where discharge to surface drain is restricted, the answer may be a contained wash pad, a silt trap, or a lower-water method that produces far less rinse. Say what is already approved and what would need a permit. We build the specification around what you can legally do; a machine that produces more rinse water than your site can handle is the wrong machine regardless of its price.
Also tell us about shelter: an open yard, a canopy, or a roofed bay with walls. Steam, rinse water and drying all behave differently under a roof, and the safety notes for the operator change with the enclosure.
Access, safety and operating rules
Tank interiors and tops need access arrangements: ladders, platforms, manhole openings, whether entry is permitted at all, and who is allowed to go up. Cleaning the top ring of a tanker while standing on a slick surface is an accident waiting to be written up, so the access question is part of the equipment choice, not an afterthought.
Send your existing cleaning method if you have one, plus any permit-to-work, isolation or lock-off rule that applies to vehicles in the bay. Where a method already exists, we work from it; where none exists, the quotation should include a drafted method with the surfaces, exclusions, dwell times and a pass mark.
Commercial and after-sales details
Delivery location, installation date, and whether you need commissioning and training on site. Say who maintains the machine afterwards and what you expect to keep as spares — nozzles, seals, hoses and heating elements wear, and a quotation that omits a wear-part list will cost you downtime later. Ask for the consumables and service interval in writing next to the price.
State your budget range if you have one, and what you already own. If a battery-fed unit already sits in the yard, or a pressure washer is already in use, that is useful information; we would rather adapt a workable arrangement than sell a duplicate.
A one-page pack to send with the enquiry
- Photos of a typical dirty vehicle: exterior, tank interior, discharge area, worst corners.
- A sketch or plan of the wash position: surface, falls, drain, gate width and height, aisle widths.
- Power facts: voltage at the position, breaker rating, distance to the socket, or a clear "no supply here".
- Water facts: tap availability, fitting type, source, and hardness if known.
- Vehicle data: tank material and coating, age, electrical items near the wash zone.
- Duty cycle: trucks per day and week, minutes per vehicle, who operates, which shifts.
- The standard the wash must meet, in the exact wording you are inspected against.
- What you may and may not change on the ground, and what is already permitted.
Send all eight and a quotation comes back without a second round of questions. Send only the truck dimensions and the answer you get is a guess, and the price moves as soon as the site conditions appear.
Shenzhen PowerDe Automation Precision Equipment has been building automation and custom equipment in Shenzhen since 2007, and customized steam cleaning equipment is specified from your site survey rather than picked off a catalogue. Mail the pack to sales@powerde.net or call +86 13023198376 and we will tell you which model fits your yard, which one we would not recommend, and what it costs to run.
