What ‘reconditioning’ actually means in our yard.

Four wash tiers, two cage tiers, one recertification process. Plus we'll wash your fleet.

30-Second Form

Reconditioning quote.

Fill in a few details — quantity, product type, the work you need done. We respond by email within one business day.

Four wash tiers

Cold rinse — water at municipal pressure for ~4 minutes, through the manway and out the valve. Removes free liquid and loose residue. Suitable for non-potable water, rain catchment, raw materials. $4/tote when we do it for an outside fleet.
Hot rinse — same flow at 140°F. Loosens viscous residues like syrups and lubricants. Suitable for industrial reuse, fertilizer mix, brine. $8/tote outside-fleet.
Steam wash — saturated steam injection at 180°F for ~6 minutes, followed by cold rinse. Suitable for food-compatible industrial use and non-food-but-sanitary applications. $14/tote outside-fleet.
Triple-rinse + steam (food grade) — three sequential cold rinses, drain-test, then steam wash. Visual inspection under bright light. Tagged Grade A. Suitable for food, beverage, sanitary chemistry. $22/tote outside-fleet.

Bottle swap

When a tote's cage is salvageable but the HDPE bottle has degraded — UV damage, brittleness, residual stain we can't wash out — we swap in a refurbished bottle from a different donor tote. The chain of custody for the new bottle is documented. Bottle swap adds ~$28 to a recon job and bumps the unit to its second usable life rather than the third.

Cage repair & recertification

Cage damage is common — forklift hits, weld breaks from being top-loaded too heavy. We carry replacement tubular steel and weld in-house. UN/DOT markings that have been worn off the cage we re-apply with the regulatory paperwork to back it up.

Wash-your-own-fleet pricing

We'll wash totes you bring in. Minimum 20 units per drop-off. Drop on Monday, pick up the following Monday with paperwork.

Wash tier	Per tote	Volume break (50+)
Cold rinse	$4	$3
Hot rinse	$8	$6
Steam wash	$14	$11
Triple-rinse + steam (food grade)	$22	$18
Bottle swap (add-on)	+$28	+$22
Cage repair (add-on)	$10–$45	quoted

Water recovery

Our wash bay runs a closed-loop water capture and filtration system that recovers ~62% of rinse water for re-use in the cold-rinse stage. Net water draw per tote is ~92 gallons, all from municipal supply, all discharged through permitted wastewater connection.

Reconditioning — the wash bay in detail

The long-form file.

Drop your fleet off, pick up freshly washed and graded totes the following week. Cheaper than buying replacements and lets you keep your existing UN/DOT markings and brand consistency.

$4–$22

Per-tote pricing across cold rinse to food-grade four-stage

20+

Minimum batch size for drop-off service

5–7 days

Turnaround on a typical 24-tote drop-off

92 gal

Fresh water per recon (50 gal recycled, 42 gal new)

Deep dive

The detail behind the surface.

§ 01

The four protocols, by price

Cold rinse ($4/tote). Single cold-water flood and drain. Removes loose residue. Appropriate when the prior contents were already water-soluble and the next use is non-contact.

Industrial wash ($9/tote). Two-stage caustic + potable rinse at 140°F / 160°F with mechanical agitation. Grade B equivalent — first-fill for industrial chemistries.

Food-grade four-stage ($22/tote). Cold soak, 145°F caustic flush, two 165°F potable rinses, 36-hour air dry, final pH test. Grade A equivalent.

Custom protocols. Available for specific chemistries (heavy oils, glycerin, honey decrystallization, urea solutions). Quoted case by case.

§ 02

What we test on the way out

Every Grade B and A tote gets: visual inspection through the top hatch (raking light, white towel wipe-down), gasket compression check, bottom valve seal test, and water-fill leak test at the wash bay's pressure station.

Grade A units also get: pH strip discharge test at the final rinse (target 7.0–7.6), and a swab sample for ATP testing if the customer requests documentation for their inbound audit.

Every unit ships with a wash certificate listing protocol, technician initials, date, and tote-specific test results.