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Okeechobee County · Florida
Viking dry ice blasting
Viking work comes to us the same way most of it does: something is coated in build-up and cannot be sanded, soaked or dissolved.
How we work in this area
We work on driveways, in yards and inside shops that cannot take water on the floor. So the equipment stays put. Everything that has to move arrives on the truck instead.
Nothing of the ice survives the blast. That removes the entire cleanup problem every other method creates, leaving only the deposit that came off the equipment.
What we clean
What we get called for in Viking
Questions from Viking
What do we have to provide?
Just access and parking. There is no tap to find, no drain to use and nothing of yours to plug into.
Will you work during a shutdown?
Nearly always. Give us the hours you can spare and we will say what genuinely fits inside them.
What kinds of jobs do you take here?
Everything from an engine bay in a driveway to a production line at shutdown. The process is the same, pointed at a different problem.
Do you charge for the drive?
Sometimes, on the longer runs. Either way it is discussed before anyone commits.
How do I get started?
Send the equipment, the location and a short description with photos if you have them. One of the owners calls you back.
Do you cover Viking?
Yes. Viking is inside our regular working area, and the rig travels to the job rather than the other way round.
Conditions around Viking
The heat matters more than people expect: baked-on residue cures harder in a South Florida summer. That is why so much of the work is removing what has bonded to a surface without taking the surface with it.
Light industrial, automotive and marine make up most of what we are called out for. Driveway or plant floor, the requirement is the same: room for the rig and access to the machine.
The pellet turns to gas, so nothing runs off toward a drain and nothing abrasive stays behind in a bearing. On a cramped Okeechobee County site that usually decides it.
What comes off
What dry ice actually removes
The rule of thumb is simple: anything stuck on rather than built in. These are the deposits we see most.
- 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
Sealant squeezed out and cured where it was never supposed to set.
- Resin and mold release
Cured process residue on a mold or fixture. The surface has to come out dimensionally unchanged, which rules out anything abrasive.
- Paint and coatings
Removed selectively where the substrate underneath has to survive, which rules out most abrasive approaches.
- Salt and corrosion product
Salt deposit and the oxidation it starts. Anything abrasive removes the protection along with the salt.
- 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, fat, starch and sugar build-up on processing equipment, cleaned without chemicals touching a food contact surface.
How a job runs
How a job actually runs
Most people have never watched dry ice blasting happen and are not sure what they are agreeing to. Here is the whole sequence, start to finish.
- You look before we pack up
Walk it with us before the hose goes away. A second pass while the compressor is still running costs nothing; a return visit costs us both.
- You describe the job
We start with what it is and what is on it. Whether it can come offline matters as much as the contaminant, and a wrong-tool answer is one we give up front rather than after the invoice.
- We look at access and containment
The layout decides the method more often than the contaminant does. We work out reach and containment before quoting anything.
- We test a small area
Settings get proven somewhere nobody looks before they get used somewhere everybody does. What is correct on cast iron will mark aluminum, so the test is not a formality.
- We blast, then clean up
There is no spent media to recover, only the deposit, which we collect before packing up.
The comparison
How this compares to the usual methods
- Pressure washing
Pressure pushes moisture past seals and into connectors, and then you wait. Panels and motors rule it out.
- Solvent and degreaser
It dissolves the deposit and often the finish underneath, then leaves a film behind either way.
- Hand scraping
Labor-intensive and uneven, and whatever you scrape with eventually marks what you are scraping.
- Media blasting
It works by removing material, which is the problem. Acceptable on heavy steel, damaging on soft alloy, plating or a machined surface.
- Dry ice
The pellet is soft and the mechanism is temperature, not abrasion. It turns to gas on impact, so the only thing left to sweep up is what came off.
What the job is like to stand next to
This is not a quiet method. Ear defenders are standard issue on site for anyone nearby.
Surfaces come out cold. On some jobs that means waiting a few minutes before handling, and on others it means condensation as the part returns to ambient temperature.
Everything the rig needs arrives with it. No tap, no drain, no outlet.
Anything nearby that should not be touched gets masked before we start. That is quicker than explaining it afterward.
Tell us what needs cleaning.
Give us the job, the address and a rough description, pictures if you have them. The call back comes from Giancarlo or Kenny directly.