25 services · Miami, FL
Industrial Ice Blasting
Production equipment is expensive to take apart and expensive to leave down. Solvent means ventilation and disposal; water means waiting; abrasive means grit in a machine you just cleaned.
What we clean, and what it is covered in
The build-up here is baked-on process residue, oil film, carbon, swarf and release agent. Most industrial work happens in place, during a shutdown or a maintenance window.
Most of the people who call are maintenance leads and plant managers. What they are protecting against is that the line does not come back up on schedule, which is exactly why an abrasive or a solvent is the wrong answer.
All 25 services
Every industrial job we take
Questions about this work
What makes dry ice right for this work?
Production equipment is expensive to take apart and expensive to leave down. Solvent means ventilation and disposal; water means waiting; abrasive means grit in a machine you just cleaned.
Do you clean in place?
Most industrial work happens in place, during a shutdown or a maintenance window. Most of this work does not need a teardown.
Will it damage the surface?
On most substrates, no. The pellet is soft and sublimates on impact, so the work is thermal rather than abrasive. We test an inconspicuous spot first on anything unusual.
Is there any residue afterward?
None from the media. Dry ice sublimates, so what is left is the contaminant we came to remove, and that is ours to clean up.
Do you come to us?
Yes. The rig is mobile and works across South Florida from Miami out to roughly a hundred miles.
What does it cost?
It depends on the equipment, the contaminant and the access. Describe the job and we will give you a real figure rather than a guess over the phone.
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.
- 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.
- Paint and coatings
Removed selectively where the substrate underneath has to survive, which rules out most abrasive approaches.
- Salt and corrosion product
The year-round problem on the coast. The finish holding corrosion back has to survive the cleaning.
- Ink and printing residue
Dried ink on precision roller faces, cleaned without altering the cell structure that does the work.
- Food residue
Carbonized product, fat, starch and sugar build-up on processing equipment, cleaned without chemicals touching a food contact surface.
- Grease and oil
Oil film is the layer everything else sticks to. Remove it and half the job is already done.
- Carbon and soot
Baked carbon on a manifold, oven or weld fixture. Thermal shock is exactly the wrong thing for the bond holding it on, which is why this works.
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 describe the job
Describe the equipment and the mess. If it cannot come offline that changes the plan, so say so early.
- 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
Pressure and pellet size get dialed in on an inconspicuous spot before we touch anything visible. Painted parts, soft alloys and older finishes all behave differently, and the right setting on one is the wrong setting on another.
- We blast, then clean up
Nothing is left of the pellet, so the only thing to collect is what was on your equipment. That collection is part of the work we quoted.
- You look before we pack up
Inspect it with the rig still set up. Anything you are not happy with gets another go before we leave.
The comparison
How this compares to the usual methods
- Hand scraping
Hours of work for an inconsistent result, with gouges where the blade slipped.
- Media blasting
Abrasive by definition. Anything with a tolerance or a finish worth keeping comes out changed.
- Pressure washing
The water has to go somewhere, and on most equipment that somewhere is inside it.
- Solvent and degreaser
Chemistry works, but you inherit ventilation, waste handling and a film on the surface.
- Dry ice
Thermal contraction cracks the bond between deposit and surface, then the pellet gasses off. Nothing abrasive, nothing wet, nothing left.
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.
The part will be cold when we finish. Sometimes that means a short wait before handling; sometimes it means a film of condensation as it warms back up.
Air comes from our own compressor. You do not need to provide power, water or a connection of any kind.
Anything nearby that should not be touched gets masked before we start. That is quicker than explaining it afterward.
Why us
Why people call us back
- We will tell you no
If dry ice is the wrong tool for what you have, we say so on the first call rather than finding out on your equipment. Honest beats a quick buck.
- We test before we commit
Anything unusual gets an inconspicuous test area first. Painted parts, soft alloys and older finishes all behave differently.
- The rig comes to you
Shop, yard, driveway or dockside, the van carries the whole setup, so nothing has to be moved.
- We clean up after ourselves
The media disappears, but the contaminant does not. Collecting it is part of the job, not an extra line.
- Firefighter owned and operated
The owners are firefighters. Preparation, checking your equipment and doing the job properly under pressure are habits that came with them.
- You speak to an owner
Giancarlo or Kenny answers, quotes the work and turns up to do it. There is no call center and no handoff where the details get lost.
Describe what you are dealing with.
Give us the job, the address and a rough description, pictures if you have them. The call back comes from Giancarlo or Kenny directly.