Eco-Friendly Cleaning Siding to Warehouses
Working hard at Pressure Washing and loving it!
The So Clean owner, Steve Neely, had an interest in cars right out of high school. He started a mobile detailing business with his best friend. They started off washing, waxing, and detailing cars. Making money and hanging out with your best friend definitely was ideal and did not feel like work at all. As the business grew, they started washing houses, driveways, and cars for dealers At one point, they were pressure washing over 1,300 cars a week for various dealerships! With the realization that they could clean vehicles on a large scale, they decided to go bigger, landing an account washing all the Pepsi trucks in Anderson, SC.
They were stretched pretty thin between house washing, mobile detailing, car lot washing, and Pepsi trucks. Early in the 2000s, Pepsi changed the way trucks on their commercial properties would be cleaned nationwide. This way, all facilities would be held to the same standard regarding wastewater from truck washing and storm drains. Pepsi approached us to devise an eco-friendly process to wash trucks with no wash water hitting the ground or going down the storm drains. Most companies would have seen this as a major roadblock in their business. We could have moved on to something else, but we saw an opportunity and a challenge.
Eco-Friendly Cleaning System
Creating a Water Recovery System
Steve went to work designing a system to work with their process. After many months and thousands of dollars spent, many failed attempts piled up. Finally, the hard work paid off, and he designed a custom wash pad that was mobile to wash the trucks on. The last part of the puzzle was to find a way to get water off the wash pad.
Steve designed an eco-friendly vacuum/pump system to pull water off the wash pad and pump it into holding tanks on a trailer. Then they would just transport the wash water to be disposed of at treatment facilities. This invention paid off for them. Before they knew it, they were washing 3 states worth of Pepsi trucks! All of this progress led to them buying more trucks, equipment, and hiring more employees so they could continue to duplicate this process.
Even though the time with Pepsi had been extremely successful, Steve still often thought about only washing residential properties. He had a family and wanted a career where he could wash during the day and spend his evenings and nights with them. His wife and 3 kids were, and still are, priority number one. He didn’t want to miss out on school field trips, basketball games, baseball games, and cheerleading events. This is how So Clean was born.
So Clean’s Beginning and Legacy
Pressure Washing since 2008
So Clean has been cleaning residential homes, business buildings and doing truck washing since 2008 and is still going strong. The typical day usually consists of a max of 3 house washings. This is to keep the company standards of eco-friendly quality to each customer. It is the So Clean vow to never sacrifice quality for quantity. The washing industry has changed so much over the last 20 years.
Staying Smart with Eco-Friendly Technologies
You have to adapt and adjust to stay relevant. This is why So Clean has the latest up-to-date eco-friendly pressure washing technology to give our Upstate South Carolina customers the best possible service there is. As for the past… to this day, Steve is still best friends with his truck washing business partner. Steve still helps him from time-to-time when work piles up.
Steve hopes that one day he can pass the operations down to his son when he is able to retire, but that is not anytime soon. He plans on working for a good long time, providing the best in the power washing industry that he can!
