The sustainability concept of the Felta car wash in Vechta in Germany was awarded the title “Car Wash of the Year”. CarwashPro.de took a closer look at what led to this award. It turned out that it is not only sustainability that distinguishes this car wash, but also clever corporate management.

A high degree of self-sufficiency thanks to a large rainwater cistern with a storage volume of 30,000 litres and a photovoltaic system are just two components of the sustainability concept of the Felta car wash in Vechta. In the coming weeks, a battery storage system for 200 kW of electricity will also be installed. The overall constellation means that the car wash can be operated almost 100 % self-sufficiently. “In view of the currently rising electricity prices, we are glad that we have achieved our security of supply in this way.” sums up Marcus Feldhaus, Managing Director of Feldhaus Energie. In other areas of the car wash, too, targeted investments are being made in sustainable technology and systems. For example, the self-service vacuum cleaner stations work with particularly energy-saving compressors that adapt the output to the required energy, and a change system is used for customer towels to produce significantly less paper waste.

Successful conversion of the car wash

The car wash in Vechta was taken over in 2002 as a petrol station with an attached car wash. At that time, the washing technology was still from WashTec. In the course of renewing the washing technology, the company converted its car wash and opted for washing technology from Holtz. “I prefer washing technology with air pressure and hydraulics. Besides, we already have Holtz technology in use at other locations. With the changeover, we now have uniform equipment, spare parts can be exchanged more easily and staff can be better deployed as substitutes at other sites.

The biggest innovation from this year is the addition of the indoor car wash. When the car wash was built in 2002, this had not yet been relevant. Today, it is apparent that the addition is already paying off. “Since the completion of the construction in September, we can see that the wash numbers have increased by about 10 to 15 per cent, compared to the previous year. Of course, the Corona factor plays a role here, but we are already noticing a difference,” Marcus Feldhaus notes with satisfaction. “In the end, we also used the opportunity of the extension so that no competitor in the vicinity would come up with the same idea or a new car wash would be opened in the immediate vicinity.”