Overview
Water Treatment is growing in importance in just about every business area. Increased costs of operating municipal water treatment facilities, lower tax bases, and increased demand on a limited supply make it necessary for all of us to properly treat, reclaim and/or discharge water in ways that comply with local, state, and federal requirements. This is especially true for for our industrial, agricultural, detailing, and contract pressure washing customers. There are many laws and regulations and some of them may conflict. But for pressure washing customers there are three primary rules to follow:

1) Water cannot be discharged into a storm drain.

2) Water cannot be discharged into a storm drain.

3) Water cannot be discharged into a storm drain.

Not dirty water, not runoff water, not oily water, and not clean tap water. No water other than that supplied by God in the form of rain is supposed to go into a storm drain. When you wash, drains should be isolated, letting your wash water evaporate, letting you discharge to sanitary sewer if this is appropriate or letting you vacuum it up and haul it off for proper disposal.

  Equipment
To help you properly recycle or discharge waste water, wash water treatment systems such as those pictured above can be employed. The basic types of systems are:

Oil/Water Separators

Biological Waste Water Reclaimation Systems

Biological Waste Water Discharge Systems

Mechanical Water Treatment Systems

Electro-Coagulation Systems

  Settling Capacity
Most Water Reclamation Systems require settling capacity in addition to the capacity of the main processing unit. This auxiliary settling capacity can be in-ground or above ground. The typical in-ground installation will include a concrete wash pad sloped directly into a pit, a pad that feeds clean-out troughs that feed a pit, or a pad that slopes into a clean-out area that then feeds a pit. There are many different designs, but they all attempt to force solids to drop out of the water before the water enters the main processing unit. Above-ground settling capacity is accomplished with cone bottom tanks. There may be one or an array of tanks. The objective is to let the solids drop to the bottom of the tank or tanks, while cleaner water is decanted from the top of the tank. The more solids a customer has (the more mud, dirt, gravel or drywall mud), the more tanks will be placed together in an array, one feeding the next. Some designs try to get all solids from the wash are into the tanks. Other designs try to leave as much of the solids on the wash pad before water is pumped into the tanks.