Rural Market Sucess
Above: B and G Car Wash stands out against the background of its bucolic surroundings.
Stokesdale, NC is a fairly small dot on most road maps, about 20 miles northeast of Greensboro, and not what many would consider a good location for a car wash. Yet Bob Casey, owner with wife Gracie of B and G Car Wash in Stokesdale, has already developed good volume there after just a few months of operation.
With five self-service bays and one automatic touch-free bay, all open 24/7, the wash meets almost every budget or wash preference. The automatic bay accounts for over half the total revenue. Weekend customers especially prefer the in-bay automatic.
B and G Car Wash is at the corner of Highway 158 and Athens Road, with access from Athens Road rather than the main highway. Oncoming cars have no trouble spotting what Casey calls "the big red elephant" - the red brick structure housing his business - from whatever direction they're driving. Bright lighting also helps draw drivers' attention during twilight and night hours.
Business numbers were encouraging even during the relatively slow summer months, and Casey reported a real jump in volume in the early days of September when Auto Laundry News interviewed him.
One reason for that success is the amount of time and effort that Bob Casey puts into his wash, far beyond simply collecting the money and stocking vending and change machines. He spends at least a couple of hours each day at the wash, cleaning any trash left behind by drivers and sometimes shoveling out self-serve bays after visits by mud-laden or other very dirty pickups and yard machines. While he does all the work himself at present, Casey is just about ready to hire someone to help, at least on a part-time basis.
The wand-bay interiors are clean and uncluttered - both left and right.
Excess dirt and debris can ruin any wash, especially where water reclaim is involved, and B and G is more vulnerable than most because of the rural surroundings. "People come by with their four-wheelers and other muddy vehicles, or they come in after hauling topsoil in their pickups and wash out the bed in our bays, leaving piles of dirt. Worse yet, you might get someone even leaving some oil in your pits, and that really plays havoc with your systems," Casey observed, so daily maintenance is essential.
Mondays and Fridays are Casey's big cleanup days when he not only cleans and picks up trash and dirt from the bays, but also cleans and maintains an extensive filter system. He typically spends four hours on Fridays and six hours on Mondays to do that job right.
The wand-bay interiors are clean and uncluttered - both left and right.
That task is all the more critical because B and G Car Wash is located away from any municipal sewer system, and the State of North Carolina won't allow any car wash discharge into a septic system. The result is a 100-percent reclaim system, first self-service car wash in the state to be so equipped, perhaps the first anywhere in the country.
The Caseys were new to the car wash business. Bob Casey had owned a construction company from which he retired in 1998. "Our company, B&G Enterprises Co., Inc., started developing a little real estate. We built an office building and then the car wash," Casey explained.
The Caseys' nephew, Kenneth Chambers, had owned a wash in Madison, NC, and "gave me some ideas," Casey says. Chambers put the Caseys in touch with Jimmy Sisk, vice president of Car Wash Concepts, Thomasville, NC, whose company has dealt with both the need for and the problems of car washes in rural sites.
Sisk's commitment to seeing proposed projects through all obstacles and details had impressed Chambers earlier, and Bob Casey liked that, too. Sisk helped bring B and G Car Wash from "nice idea" to reality, not only by proposing a combination of self-serve and automatic washing, but in helping find a solution to water handling in a site such as the Caseys had where there is no municipal sewer system.
"With the type of car wash we have, we needed his integrity and determination to make it succeed," Bob Casey said. "A lot of people will just disappear when they hit the first few bumps, but Jimmy hung in there and helped me find the engineering and equipment to make our wash possible."
One attempt to permit the wash with partial reclaim and some drainage into a septic system was rejected by the North Carolina agency in charge of water quality. They cited previous failures in attempting that type of operation. Water disposal alternatives such as drip or spray irrigation, evaporation or deionization also seemed to be too costly or unreliable.
The equipment room houses wash and reclaim equipment.
The Catec water recovery system installed at B and G involves settling and filtering through a three-tank system (each 1,500 gallons), and maintaining two additional 1,500-gallon tanks for backup. Catec is located in Sarasota, FL. Eric Wu, of URS Corp., Charlotte, NC, with expertise in wastewater treatment facilities, evaluated the system and gave it his engineer's stamp before the permit application was submitted.
An additional requirement was a monitoring system that would notify at least two people if the backup tanks began to fill. That system and a complete remote video system for the wash came from Image Innovations, Corona, CA. From his home about a mile away, Casey can watch activity at the wash via any of the 16 cameras.
In case of a problem with the water recovery system, both Casey and Sisk's company are automatically notified if the backup tanks start filling. The same system also alerts both parties if anyone enters the equipment room.
All of the equipment at B and G is from Specialty Equipment, including not only the wash systems themselves, but also two red-and-white combination vacuum stands - one offering a choice between vacuum and shampoo and the other a selection of either shampoo or fragrance. The latter is a very popular choice at B and G.
The equipment room houses wash and reclaim equipment.
Vending machines include one Coca-Cola machine with assorted soft drinks. Another is stocked with Armor All pads, window cleaner, and a super-soft drying towel. The third machine offers "Little Tree" car fresheners. Bob Casey checks and restocks the vending machines every Monday and Friday.
Casey persuaded his bank to count and wrap quarters as part of processing his deposits. Quarters are the only form of payment accepted in the self-serve bays, but B and G has three change machines that will convert $1, $5 and $10 bills into quarters.
Customers for the in-bay automatic wash can pay with cash (bills or quarters), Visa, MasterCard or Discover cards. Most drivers choose the "Works" wash, a $7 package that includes double hot polish, tricolor conditioner, and triple turbo dry along with other options included in lower-priced washes such as the $4 "Express," the $5 "Super," and the $6 "Deluxe."
Some of the construction of B and G Car Wash was dictated by wanting to protect the five underground storage tanks. "We poured concrete not only in the bays but extending out about 40 feet from the bays to protect those tanks," Bob Casey said.
A close-up view of the vending and change center.
The above ground structure is of double-wall red brick, topped by a metal deck and a standing seam metal roof, with red metal fascia around the upper walls. Signage is limited, but the size and brightness of the wash does a good job of attracting drivers and giving drivers a sense of security. Leland cypress trees and shrubbery frame the wash and provide a buffer separating it from adjoining residential or other industrial development.
Casey used some advertising in an area weekly to introduce his wash, but was disappointed in the results. "I ran an ad three separate weeks, and offered a $2 discount in July," but July business was still slow compared to a "booming" June.
He opened the wash on May 21, but chose not to run any grand opening promotion. He felt he needed some time to ensure that B and G's unique water recovery system and all of the equipment worked properly. "Most new customers have been attracted by our one sign," Bob Casey said, "and those red-and-white vacuums out front." The sign simply advertises "Touch Free Automatic Wash." He cleared property he owns across the road from the wash to enhance its visibility.
While the busiest car washing months were still ahead, B and G is already meeting its projections. Its combination of well-maintained equipment to provide washes for every need and budget, an attractive site, and a trail-blazing environmental approach to total water reclaim is making this new wash a community asset in many ways.