Washing your rig!

[Underdawg3ate1]

I know this can be a sore subject to some but I haven't seen much of it on here so I figured I'd take a crack at it.

How often do you guys wash and clean your rigs, inside and out?

How often does your equipment get cleaned?

Does anyone go all out and wax your rigs?

I'm known as the "Clean Nazi" at my company and it's true, I can't stand a dirty rig! If I come in and the rigs dirty then I wash it. The only time I won't wash them is when it's below 30F or if it's raining/snowing. I wash top to bottom, tires, rims, and the diamond plating. Door and compartment jams are cleaned out and the inside is given a thorough wipe down. Windows are cleaned and RainX is applied monthly. Wash and drying takes about an hour and a half.

I wax my rigs 4 times a year, twice a year (usually beginning of Spring and Autumn) I give them a full detail to get rid of scratches and blemishes. These usually takes 2 to 3 12 hour days depending how busy we are. Diamond plating and chrome gets polished, tires and trim pieces dressed, 2 coats of wax goes onto the paint, and a bunch of my vollies saying I'm obsessed!

We have two 2002 Horton Type III's and they look like we took delivery of them a few months ago!

To me a clean and shiny rig conveys professionalism and attention to detail to the pt and their families. I've seen other crews eyeballing our rigs and a few asking if they are new.

I know it can't be done all the time, especially with companies that have a high call volume.

So how do you guys do it?

[Just Plain Ruff]

Wash every day if weather permits

clean inside wipe down and all that, about as often as someone thinks about it.

We do a monthly check and then since that ambulance is out of service till it's check gets done (we have one spare unit so we can rotate units around). That monthly check allows for cleaning of the equipment and a wipedown.

Does it get done any more than that? Hard to say. Some say they do it some I know do not.

It's a good dream for high volume services to do this type of cleaning like you do but I don't see it as reality.

[Fish_KO_Tech]

Hey,

We have 5 units at our service, 3 are staffed at a time. We have a schedule for cleaning them, where we take EVERYTHING out of the back and cab, spray and wipe with our antiseptics, and take it to wash in winter, or handwash in summer. Our manager likes the unit that's to be washed, to be washed, regardless of weather. During the winter we use the wax spray at the carwash, but the units are usually waxed by hand twice a year, just before and just after winter. We don't go as far as to polish rims and tires and chrome every time, but sometimes on a slow day, every month or so, they might get some extra attention. The expiration dates are also checked while the unit is being cleaned. We've got a pretty solid system going and it works very well, but most people covet Tuesdays and Thursdays, when there is no clean to be done! Other than that, after a call, the typical stretcher, floor, bench, airway chair, and front end wipe is done.

[WolfmanHarris]

I was the truck every shift as call volume allows. If we get back to base after end of shift, I won't stay later to do it, but on the flipside if the crew I'm relieving didn't get a chance, I wash it at the beginning of the shift. In the winter I try to rinse the truck off every time it hits a station to keep the dirt down (and the back-up camera clear).

We do a deep clean of the interior every Sunday. Everything out, wipe every nook and cranny.

I mop out the back of the truck and the floors in the cab every time it's my turn to clean (driver cleans while attending Medic does paperwork then switch for the next call).

Stretcher and monitor gets wiped with virox wipes after every call before fresh linen is placed on it.

Severely contaminated equipment is pulled from service and sent to logistics for decon.

I never do an exterior detail or wax.

Edited December 21, 2010 by docharris

[JTpaintball70]

I detail the inside of my truck after every call, and decon every piece of equipment that we use. My steth included... outside though... Umm... since we have to wash them outside, and it's been 55mph gusts of wind blowing sand all over the last two weeks... At least two weeks since we washed the outside of our units. If we were to wash them now it would look like a mud colored bus

[tcripp]

We wash our main line trucks every day, weather permitting. The backup trucks get washed once a week or after use. In the rural areas...we have bugs to deal with, so you can't skip out on a wash because it is noticed. And, since we are a county service, the people pay taxes to our service, so we take pride in the equipment.

The inside should be "deconned" after each call and the cab is to be wiped down each day or, at the very least, at the end of each 48-hr shift.

Waxing...that happens occasionally...no specific schedule.

[JakeEMTP]

I can't speak for the other 3 crews that run out of our station (24/72 schedule), but my partner and I wash the outside of the ambulance every shift, preferably at the beginning of shift. We also wipe it down do to mostly me being anal about water spots. If you're not going to wipe down the truck, don't bother washing it. Water spots look like crap. The inside is wiped down and floor mopped after every call. The cab is wiped down and glass cleaned sometime during the shift. We don't always have time to do it at the beginning of the shift.

We wax the truck at least twice a year.

[Chief1C]

Def gets waxed before winter, easier to clean. Usually gets rinsed after a call, weather permitting; washed good once a week, inside is cleaned after every call. I'm real fussy about that, b/c I got an infection in a finger once from the stretcher mount.

[uglyEMT]

Being I am the "Rig Guy" I can answer this very well LOL

We wash the rigs once a week (low call volume so most of the time the rig is in the bay). I wax the rigs once a month and the full blown detailing is usually done every other month, unless of course my probies need a reality check then its more frequent

Decon is after every call. I would rather spend a few extra minutes at the ED parking lot to decon then cross contaminate the next call because "we were tired".

Full blown rig check (every piece is inventoried, yes even the band-aids) is every weekend. That usually takes a few hours each rig. We do one at a time so that if the tones go out we have a duty rig available. This means acurate counts of everything down to the smallest thing. Experation dates get recorded so I know when i need to replace things. BTW if the oral glucose industry is reading this.... MAKE THE DAMN NUMBER BIGGER PLEASE or at least a different color then the background. Yes yes yes I do run a sharpie over them to highlight the numbers but still any smaller I would need a microscope to see them.

O2 tanks are checked after every call and recorded, even if they were not used, so we know to replace them if we are close to empty. Nothing more embarrasing then running out of O2 during a CPAP transport and looking at a Medic and getting that "Really Moron!?!" look.

Same goes for the defib. Battery check after each call.

Other then that I give a full detail 2 times a year and of course before any special duty detail. I will be good for a while since I had it professionally detailed for our WTC Steel Escort.

[fakingpatience]

Our rigs are supposed to get washed before end of shift every night/ morning. Our supervisors even expect us to stay late if we had a late call to wash the truck... There is no rule how often the inside gets cleaned. I have never seen anyone at my new company mop down the floor inside, but we do get a towel and wipe the floor down (it is really snowy/ slushy outside, so the floors get really wet and dirty). Equipment gets cleaned when ever the crew feels like it. Usually when I am starting my shift, I wipe down the grab bar at the ceiling, the door handles, the bench seat, monitor, the steering wheel, and the siren controls, and anything else that looks dirty.

I agree that the trucks should be cleaned, but I get annoyed that we are expected to stay late to wash them.