Watertight walls for Niels Autowash

Moisture penetration through a carwash wall – of course, nobody wants that. Niels Wessels of Niels Autowas in Harderwijk opted for a thorough approach: he had a new plastic Cleanpanel wall installed. CarwashPRO wrote a report on this project.

Niels Autowas Harderwijk installs waterproof plastic wall

Niels Autowas in Harderwijk had a new plastic wall installed in its car wash.
The wall that was originally there looked fine, but turned out not to be completely watertight. After several attempts to solve the problem, it was finally decided to have a Cleanpanel wall put in front of it.

For owner Niels Wessels, it was important to find a good solution. “If your neighbours suffer from moisture penetration at some point, you want to address that right away.
We tried several things. A coating on the wall, sealant, a raised edge… All to no avail.

In the end, we said: let’s tackle it rigorously. And we had a new plastic wall installed in front of it, to solve the problem that way.”
The Cleanbuild branded wall was installed on the right side of the car wash.

Challenge
For Cleanbuild’s installation team, placing the wall was a challenge because of several obstacles in the space. For instance, the floor coating was not completely flat, but was installed against the wall with a slope.

“This meant we could not mount panels on it as easily. Therefore, the new plastic wall was placed about 200 mm from the existing wall, right on the ground.
To make it completely watertight, a new bilge was made (ed: bilge is the connection of wall to floor),” says Cleanbuild.

At the top, the panels are mounted against a curve. And in the hall, tie rods run from left to right, passing through the wall.
Cleanbuild: “In the pre-wash, it was not possible to move the aluminium arch. Therefore, we made a plastic cove behind this.” (see photo)

Green and modern
Niels Autowas has been open in Harderwijk since 2021 and is located on Stephensonstraat.
It washes with a DICO wash installation from Meijer Carwash of Assen.
There are also a number of wash boxes, a vacuuming area and extras such as a cloth machine, mat brush machine and an odour machine.
Besides this location, Niels Autowas also has two carwashes in Assen, which have been operational since 2011 and 2018.

At the Harderwijk location, there is plenty of focus on car washing that is as sustainable as possible.
For instance, only biodegradable shampoos and waxes are used, as well as water from its own well.
This water is purified using a biological water purification system, which consists of a number of wells where the water can come to rest and where the bacteria can then do their work. Other innovations are also currently being looked at, to make the carwash even more ‘green’ and future-proof.