Issues: A very large mining operation was working with an engineering firm to design and build a new multi-bay truck maintenance facility in northern Canada – very northern, near the Arctic Circle.

Near the end of the design process, it was decided that the trucks needed to be cleaned prior to maintenance so the last bay was converted into a wash pad. Since they had limited space to work with and a tight timeline, the design engineers contacted us to assist with washing and treatment equipment and maximize their wash bay design.

Solution:  As with most mining operations in cold regions, most of their vehicles come in for maintenance covered in a lot of dirt, snow and ice. We worked closely with their engineers to first design a very efficient solids handling system and a substantial settling basin to fit into their footprint.

We then recommended a suite of pumping and washing systems for their two-story wash.  Since they had a variety of vehicles and equipment, we recommended multiple compact water monitors placed strategically in the wash bay. Each monitor system will supply 100 gpm @ 100 psi. We also added hand-held 20 GPM @ 1000 psi demucking systems to help clean where the monitors could not reach and a heated pressure washer for finish washing.

For their application, we also developed a fully automated closed loop water treatment and storage system which included a clarifier oil water separator, water storage tanks, solids filtration, activated carbon, polishing filtration, and air injection to reduced potential odors.

To save floorspace, they asked us to put as much equipment as possible into a transportable equipment room, located next to the maintenance building. Due to the extreme northern location, the walls, floors, ceilings all had to be insulated to -50°C. Piping and connections between the equipment room and the building had to be insulated and heat traced.

The client handled most the installation and Wash Bay engineers traveled to the site and did the system commissioning and start-up.