What builds up, and why it matters
On this kind of work the problem is fine dust and particulate loading on switchgear, busway, fans and mechanical plant. A data hall cannot take water and cannot take downtime. Cleaning has to be dry, contained, and finished inside the window you were given.
Work is planned around the maintenance window and the containment the facility requires. The people who call us about data center dry are usually critical facility and data center operations teams, and the thing they are actually worried about is particulate migrating somewhere it should not, or a window overrunning.
The method
Why dry ice and not the alternatives
- Non-abrasive
The pellet is soft and sublimates on impact, so the work is thermal rather than mechanical. Machined faces, plating, paint and gaskets survive it.
- Low moisture
No standing water in a harness, a bearing or a cabinet, and no dry time before the equipment goes back into service.
- No secondary waste
Sand, soda and walnut shell all have to be swept and hauled. Dry ice leaves only the contaminant it removed.
- Often no teardown
Much of this work is done in place, which is usually where the real saving is. The labor is in the disassembly, not the cleaning.
More data work
Related jobs we get called for
Questions we get asked first
Will it damage the surface underneath?
On most substrates, no. The pellet is soft and sublimates on impact, so it does thermal work rather than mechanical work. We still test an inconspicuous spot first on anything unusual.
Do you have to take the equipment apart for data center dry?
Usually far less than you would expect, and often not at all. Cleaning in place is where most of the saving comes from, because the labor is normally in the teardown and reassembly.
How much mess does it make?
Far less than the alternatives, because the blasting media disappears. What is left is the contaminant itself, which we contain and clean up.
Do you come to us?
Yes. The whole rig is mobile. Compressor, hose and operator arrive at your shop, plant, driveway or dock, anywhere across South Florida from Miami out to roughly a hundred miles.
What does a job cost?
It depends on the equipment, the contaminant and the access, so we will not throw a number at you over the phone without understanding the work. Describe the job and we will give you a real figure.
How soon can you look at it?
Send photos and a short description and one of the owners gets back to you. If you have a shutdown or a deadline, say so up front and we will tell you honestly whether we can hit it.
The comparison
Why not just pressure wash it
- Pressure washing
Water gets into everything and has to come out again before the equipment runs. Around electrics it is off the table entirely.
- Solvent and degreaser
It loosens the mess and leaves its own behind, along with fumes and something to dispose of.
- Hand scraping
Slow, inconsistent, and the tool marks the surface. Fine for a small area, unworkable across a machine.
- Media blasting
Effective and indiscriminate. On soft metal or a finished surface it does damage you then have to fix.
- Dry ice
Cold breaks the bond and the media vanishes. The substrate is untouched and there is no second mess to clean up.
What comes off
The deposits we see most
Most calls involve one of the following. The common factor is a bond between two things that should not be bonded.
- Salt and corrosion product
A constant in South Florida. Removing it without stripping the protective finish is the whole trick.
- Ink and printing residue
Dried ink and coating build-up on rollers and press components, where the surface texture is the product.
- Food residue
Carbonized product build-up in a plant where neither standing water nor a chemical film is acceptable.
- Grease and oil
Oil film is the layer everything else sticks to. Remove it and half the job is already done.
- Carbon and soot
The hard black crust on a housing, an oven or a weld cell. Bonded by heat, and the first thing to release under thermal shock.
- Adhesive and sealant
Cured sealant, old gasket, tape glue and sound deadening, the residue left when something was removed but its bond was not.
- Resin and mold release
Production residue cured onto tooling. Solvent softens it and leaves its own film; the ice lifts it and takes nothing with it.
How a job runs
What happens once you call
If you have not seen this done before, the process is worth reading once. Nothing below is hidden in a footnote.
- We blast, then clean up
The media disappears on contact; the contaminant does not. Gathering what came off is included, not a line added afterward.
- You look before we pack up
The job is not finished because we say so. It is finished when you have looked at it.
- You describe the job
The machine, the deposit and the downtime you can afford. Those three things decide the whole job, and we would rather know all of them before quoting.
- We look at access and containment
How close the truck can get, how far the hose must run, what needs covering, and where the debris goes. That is the bulk of the planning on a tight site.
- We test a small area
An out-of-sight patch comes first so pressure and pellet size are proven before anything that shows. Soft alloys, older paint and bare metal each want different numbers.
What happens in your space
Masking happens first. Whatever is adjacent and vulnerable gets covered before the hose is picked up.
Dry ice is carbon dioxide in solid form. It is non-toxic and leaves no residue, but it does displace oxygen in an enclosed space, so ventilation is part of the setup rather than an afterthought.
Expect noise. Everybody inside the working area wears hearing protection, us included.
Cold surfaces are the one aftereffect. Depending on the piece that is either a few minutes of patience or some condensation while it returns to room temperature.
Send us the job.
Tell us what the machine is, where it is and what is on it. A photo or two speeds it up. One of the owners calls you back.