Calgary fleet washing at your yard, paint-safe and decal-safe
Trucks, vans, trailers and oversized rigs washed at your yard on a weekly or monthly route card. Paint-safe pH-neutral chemistry, brushless soft-touch technique, decal-safe rinse. Heated water for winter salt removal. Most Calgary fleet jobs land between $500 and $3,000 per visit depending on fleet size and service mix.
Bringing the wash to the yard beats driving every truck to a bay
A 50-vehicle fleet has a math problem with wash bays — every truck has to be driven to the bay, washed, then driven back. At 30 minutes round-trip per vehicle plus the wash, you are looking at 25-30 driver-hours of dead time per cleaning cycle. The yard-based alternative is one Hartford crew showing up at 7am with two pressure washers, working through the fleet line by line, finished by 3pm. The drivers do not move; the trucks do not move; nothing comes off the schedule.
The cost model also changes. Per-vehicle yard-based work is 25-40 percent less than equivalent wash-bay work because the equipment set-up is once for the whole fleet rather than once per vehicle. The chemistry is matched to the fleet's paint and wrap requirements — paint-safe pH-neutral on day-cabs, mild-alkaline on dirtier oilfield trucks, decal-safe rinse on vinyl-wrapped vans. Pair fleet washing with heavy equipment washing for the oversized scope or with parking lot cleaning if the yard slab needs cleaning at the same visit.
Recent work
How a Calgary fleet wash runs
Four steps from yard arrival to clean fleet
Yard arrival and water source
Crew arrives at the contracted time, confirms water source, hooks up to yard supply or runs from our truck tank if no water. Cones placed at the wash zone perimeter, fleet manager briefed on the day's order.
Pre-rinse and chemistry
Each vehicle pre-rinsed to lift loose grime, then sprayed with paint-safe pH-neutral detergent. Wheels and undercarriage get extra dwell where salt residue is heavy. Brushes only on heavily soiled flat panels — soft-touch.
Soft rinse and dry
Low-pressure rinse pattern aimed downward so the runoff goes to the yard drain, not back onto the cab. Mirror surfaces and chrome get a microfibre detail pass. Air dry or spot-dry depending on contract scope.
Walkaround per vehicle, next in line
Quick walkaround per vehicle to confirm paint, decals and chrome look right. Fleet manager spot-checks at the end of the day. Standard exterior takes 5-10 minutes per vehicle; full detail adds 25-35 minutes.
Calgary fleet realities
Winter brine, oilfield grit and the customer-visibility decision
Calgary fleet operators face two distinct chemistry challenges. Winter brine (Calgary uses calcium chloride plus aggregate sand on the roads from October through April) builds up on the undercarriage and the lower body panels and corrodes brake lines and frame steel if left for more than a month. Oilfield service trucks running rural routes pick up baked-on grit and tar from access roads that need a stronger detergent than urban fleets.
The customer-visibility decision is the other half of the conversation. Fleets where every truck is a rolling billboard (couriers, contractors, services with branded vans) usually run weekly exteriors plus monthly full details because the appearance directly drives customer impressions. Fleets where the trucks rarely interact with customers (utility, construction haulers) can stretch to monthly exteriors with quarterly details. Pair fleet work with heavy equipment washing for off-road equipment or with sanitising and disinfection for delivery vehicles and passenger-carrying vans.
Written quotesPricing
Annual + as-neededCadence
Hartford fleet washingOutcome
Pair fleet washing with
Other commercial services on the same yard visit
Fleet work pairs with the yard slab, the heavy equipment scope and the sanitiser pass — same crew, same yard, single contracted visit.
On-site at your yard for almost all fleet contracts. We bring the equipment, the water and the chemistry to the fleet location — most operators run 20-100 vehicles and yard-based work is far more efficient than driving each truck to a wash bay. Single-vehicle work or specialised wash bay work can come to us at the Calgary shop, but route work is yard-based.
Exterior wash is the standard fleet service — body, wheels, cab windows, trailer sides — finished in 5-10 minutes per vehicle. Full detail includes interior vacuum, cab clean, wheel-well degrease and a tire-shine pass — 30-45 minutes per vehicle. Most operators run weekly exteriors plus monthly or quarterly details. The cost difference is significant; the choice depends on the fleet's customer-facing visibility.
Yes. Class 8 tractors, 53-foot trailers, oilfield service trucks, ag equipment, dump trailers, equipment haulers. We bring the right ladder set-up and the extended pressure wand for the upper trailer panels. Single oversized rigs take 15-20 minutes for exterior; routes through a yard of oversized vehicles average 25-30 vehicles in an 8-hour day.
Yes, paint-safe and decal-safe pH-neutral or mild-alkaline detergents on every fleet. Brushless soft-touch wash technique so no swirl marks on the paint and no edge-lifting on decals. We do not use acid-based wash chemistry on fleet work because acid will etch chrome and lift vinyl wrap edges within months. Wraps are the most expensive part of a fleet's livery — we treat them carefully.
Heated water at the surface cleaner setting melts the road salt and grit off the chassis without damaging the paint. We add a salt-neutraliser pre-treatment for the undercarriage and the lower body panels where the salt builds up worst. Winter routes go weekly or bi-weekly because Calgary brine is hard on the underbody — letting it accumulate for a month means corrosion damage to brake lines and frame components.
Calgary fleet washing reviews
What fleet managers say after the route visit
★★★★★4.9· 75 reviews on Google
★★★★★
85-vehicle courier fleet on a weekly exterior route. Hartford runs the yard from 7am to 3pm one weekday and we never see a vehicle off the road for wash. Vans look fresh every Monday morning, branded livery stays clean.
Fleet Manager
Calgary · Foothills Industrial
★★★★★
Oilfield service fleet — 30 Class 8 tractors plus trailers, off-road grit baked on every panel. Crew used the right chemistry for the dirt level and the trucks came back to colour for the first time in years.
Operations Manager
Calgary · East Lake Industrial
★★★★★
Construction equipment haulers with vinyl-wrapped branding. The previous wash crew was using something that lifted the decal edges. Hartford explained the chemistry difference, used decal-safe products and we have no more lifting after six months.
Operations Director
Calgary · Dufferin North
★★★★★
Winter contract is the make-or-break test. The salt-neutraliser pre-treatment plus the heated water is what we needed — brake-line corrosion was costing us $4,000 per truck per year and the new wash routine has cut that down significantly.
Maintenance Manager
Calgary · Greenwood Industrial
From the blog
Fleet wash chemistry, winter salt and on-site route guides
Free fleet route bid
Request your Calgary fleet washing route in writing
Tell us the fleet size, vehicle types (trucks, vans, trailers, oversized rigs) and the cadence you need (weekly, bi-weekly, monthly). A Hartford account manager follows up within one business day with a yard-based route contract proposal.
