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Lightening Overhead
By Timothy Denman

The war with rising utility costs is a stark reality for wash owners around the country. Frank Trilla can claim a victory.

Trilla owns and operates King Car Wash in Westmont, IL and recently overhauled his lighting system, lowering illumination energy consumption by 75 percent.

King previously employed 22 fixtures that consumed 450 watts of power each and cost a small fortune to maintain — $80 for replacement bulbs and $80 for ballasts. The new setup uses just 11 fixtures that draw 225 watts each. The new units cost about $9,000 and should pay for themselves in two and a half years through lower utility and upkeep bills.

“We are saving a ton of money on maintenance and utility costs,” Trilla said. “Believe it or not, the wash is actually much brighter than it used to be.”

The decision to update the building’s lighting was fueled by two major factors. First, the obvious economic benefit of reduced energy consumption. Secondly, the opportunity to continue King’s long-standing tradition of environmental stewardship.

King has been reclaiming its wash water for over 15 years, and currently uses a non-chemical wastewater treatment system that utilizes bacteria to recycle the water. The system recycles 85 percent of the wash’s water — fresh water is only used in the final rinse and in the mixing of chemicals. In addition to water recycling the wash captures rainwater from the roof runoff to help augment the fresh water supply.

King Car Wash opened its doors in 1953, 20 miles from its current location. The wash was just the second automatic car wash in the city of Chicago at the time. Back then the business was owned and operated by Frank’s father and uncle. Frank became a partner in the business in 1986 when the business moved to its current location, and became the sole owner before his father’s death in 1998.

King Car Wash is located just off a corner on busy Cass Ave in Westmont, a suburb of Chicago. The wash sees over 40,000 cars pass by daily, 100,000 of which pull into King in an average year.

That number began to dip about seven years ago — the wash serviced about 80,000 vehicles that year. In response to the drop in throughput Trilla decided to alter his pricing structure. The wash features four full-serve offerings and an express exterior option.

At its low point, the express was only generating 3,000 washes a year. The exterior wash was priced at $7.95 and was obviously producing very little in terms of revenue for King. Trilla decided to drop the price to $4.95 in the hopes of bringing in new clientele. The plan worked.