Air Conditioned Auto Detail Shops

The other day, I was talking to an acquaintance in Colorado, he managed a truck wash, and as we got to talking, it was obvious that he was looking for additional revenue streams to become more profitable. One of the challenges with running a truck wash in Colorado in the wintertime is that the trucks get very dirty due to the salt on the roads, or in some cities they put sand on the road - obviously that gets all over the trucks. That plus many workers don't like working in freezing cold weather, and when you get soaking wet, it turns to ice on your uniform.

Therefore, there is a need to heat the facility, and the water. This costs money. Nevertheless, humans have a difficult time working in adverse conditions, and the wash process slows down significantly, it hurts the volume or the number of trucks which can be washed per day. Indeed, if you are freezing cold, you are more concerned about staying warm, than you are chipping away the ice and caked on crud off the truck you are cleaning. Now then, what about a service business such as a detail shop in the summertime?

Well, it's basically the same problem in reverse. The other day at Starbucks I was talking to a fellow entrepreneur who also had experience running a detail shop. His detail shops were in Arizona, and later he had one in Nevada. It got so hot in the summer time that the swamp coolers couldn't keep up, and therefore he was forced to close the bay doors, and turn on the built-in air-conditioning system.

Because it was a large industrial building with a high ceiling, and because the roll up doors did not make a completely tight fit his air-conditioning costs went through the roof, literally, and the sides of the doors too - and when a car was completed and pulled out, out went whatever cold air was left!

Does it make sense to keep a detail shop air-conditioned? Well, you don't want to have the air-conditioning run the temperature down too much. Optimally, it makes sense to keep it at 78 to 80-degrees, anything less will cost a l lot of money at the end of the month, and zap all your profits. Further, if it's much over 80-degrees, the workers slowdown, start dragging, and you won't get as much work done. Another thing that I had found over the years was that other detail shops which did not have air conditioning would have their top detailers quit, and come over and work for one of our franchisees that did have air conditioning.

Because of this we were able to keep the best auto detailing technicians, and we didn't even have to pay them more. They came for the air-conditioning, and if you had to work outside every day in extremely hot weather, you'd understand. Anyway, the fellow entrepreneur I was talking to and I both agree on that point. And so I thought I'd share this with you. Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.