What does the Haines City Code say about washing trucks and trailers?

Read § 20-155(c) of the City Code before you plan around it. It permits washing automobiles, trucks, trailers and other motor vehicles or equipment using the low volume definition in Fla. Admin. Code Rule 40D-21.051(13), and caps non-business, personal vehicles at once a week "unless a business enterprise established for such purpose is used". We will not tell you that clause makes us exempt or approved, because it does not say so. If you want a reading you can rely on, the City is the one to ask.

Which water point should we send you to?

Whichever one you tell us about before the reserve fills rather than after. Haines City bills potable irrigation water and reclaimed irrigation water as separate rate classes, so on a property with both, "there is a water point on that wall" does not finish the question. We have no source on what either water does to a polished aluminium finish and we are not going to make one up. Knowing what went into the tank is worth more than guessing.

Do we need to sweep the yard before you arrive?

Section 20-155(d) prohibits hosing down a driveway or other impervious surface to remove grass clippings or other debris that a broom or another dry method would take off, and a concrete or asphalt yard pad is an impervious surface. So loose debris on the pad is something to settle before the wash: tell us about it when we walk the yard.

Fleet washing in Haines City

Haines City wrote a section of its own code about washing vehicles, and it names trucks and trailers in the text. Three local documents change how a yard visit here gets planned: that section, the same ordinance's account of the City's water system, and the state's traffic counts for the stretches of US 27 and Hinson Avenue that run through the city.

The section names trucks and trailers, and its weekly cap is written for personal vehicles

Ordinance No. 22-2025 added Article V, Year-Round Conservation Measures, to Chapter 20 of the City Code, and § 20-155 carries a vehicle subsection sitting directly above the hard-surface one, subsection (d). Subsection (c) covers "the washing of automobiles, trucks, trailers, mobile homes, campers, boats, or any other type of motor vehicle or equipment" and permits it "using low volume washing", a term it takes from Fla. Admin. Code Rule 40D-21.051(13) and spells out: a bucket and sponge, or a hose with a self-cancelling or automatic shut-off nozzle, or both. Then it draws the line a yard should read for itself: "Unless a business enterprise established for such purpose is used, the washing of non-business, personal vehicles shall be conducted no more than one time per week." The weekly cap in that sentence is written for non-business, personal vehicles; the low volume method is the condition the subsection attaches to the washing it permits. We will not tell you the quoted clause makes us exempt, permitted or approved: it says none of those things. What the section does not set is the schedule. We typically run nights and weekends, around your route schedule, and we are flexible to what your contract needs, so the cadence is something we settle with you: which nights, in what rotation.

More than one water, and the tap the reserve fills from

We are fully mobile. We connect to your spigot and fill a large onboard reserve, so a truck arrives full or draws from your water while we work. That leaves one question for any yard: is there a usable water point. Here it has a second half. The same ordinance recites that the City "owns and operates a water and wastewater system within an exclusive water and wastewater service area", and records a per capita daily water use of 153 gallons per person per day, a figure the ordinance gives for the City as a whole. The same article carries a section headed Establishing New Per Capita Water Use Goals, which adopts the Central Florida Water Initiative standard: yearly progress toward a gross per capita rate of no greater than 115 gallons a day, or a functional rate of no greater than 100. The City also bills reclaimed irrigation water as a rate class of its own, separate from potable irrigation, and the ordinance requires a sign reading "using reclaimed water" beside any decorative fountain run on it. That sign rule is about fountains, not about us, and we will not stretch it into permission nobody gave us. So if your property has reclaimed service, tell us which water point is on which when we walk the yard; it is better known before the reserve fills than after. The potable side is documented as well: the City's 2022 drinking water quality report describes ground water from wells drawing on the Floridan Aquifer, aerated, chlorinated, fluoridated, with ortho-polyphosphate added to reduce corrosion. We will not tell you what that does to a polished aluminium tank, because we have no source that says. Then the limit: we do not carry tanks to collect the wash water and haul it off site. We are not set up for that; if your lease or your permit requires it, you need a contractor equipped for it.

Getting a rig in and out on US 27 and Hinson Avenue

Mobile means the rig comes to the yard and leaves again, and on the US 27 stretches through Haines City getting it in and out is part of the plan. FDOT's 2025 counts are annual averages: 66,000 vehicles on an average day from the bridge north to CR 17 / Old Polk City Road and 76,000 from there to Bates Road, two stretches that sit inside the city limits end to end, and 71,500 from Bates Road to CR 547, a stretch that slips outside the limits in two short places. Trucks alone account for 7,458 of the first of those, an 11.3 per cent share, and 4,332 and 4,433 of the other two. We name the stretches rather than the road because the counts belong to segments, and a junction a mile off may not be inside the city at all. The other road is Hinson Avenue. It carries US 17/92, and FDOT's average-day counts are 33,000 on the stretch that ends at 10th Street, 3,201 of them trucks, and 23,500 from 10th Street to 17th Street, 2,021 of them trucks: shares of 9.7 and 8.6 per cent. The 1994 National Register nomination for the downtown district describes US 17/92 as running along Hinson Avenue and calls it a major east/west corridor through the community. The same document places US 27 approximately one mile west of the downtown as an important local north/south route, its words and its estimate, not a measurement of ours. None of this is an argument about metal temperature. The schedule is a chemistry decision first, because the cleaning guide written for architectural aluminium rules out chemically cleaning hot, sun-heated metal, and that argument is set out in full on the fleet washing page. This is the separate local question a yard on either road brings to the walkthrough: where the rig stages, which way it turns in and out, and what is going past your gate while it does.

Common questions

What does the Haines City Code say about washing trucks and trailers?: Read § 20-155(c) of the City Code before you plan around it. It permits washing automobiles, trucks, trailers and other motor vehicles or equipment using the low volume definition in Fla. Admin. Code Rule 40D-21.051(13), and caps non-business, personal vehicles at once a week "unless a business enterprise established for such purpose is used". We will not tell you that clause makes us exempt or approved, because it does not say so. If you want a reading you can rely on, the City is the one to ask.
Which water point should we send you to?: Whichever one you tell us about before the reserve fills rather than after. Haines City bills potable irrigation water and reclaimed irrigation water as separate rate classes, so on a property with both, "there is a water point on that wall" does not finish the question. We have no source on what either water does to a polished aluminium finish and we are not going to make one up. Knowing what went into the tank is worth more than guessing.
Do we need to sweep the yard before you arrive?: Section 20-155(d) prohibits hosing down a driveway or other impervious surface to remove grass clippings or other debris that a broom or another dry method would take off, and a concrete or asphalt yard pad is an impervious surface. So loose debris on the pad is something to settle before the wash: tell us about it when we walk the yard.

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