Jeff Ballantyne has seen all kinds of traffic come across the weigh scale at the Elmira Truck Wash: tractors, transport trucks, pickup trucks, RVs. You can even hop up there yourself if you feel the urge; the scale is accurate to within a pound or two and has been certified by Measurement Canada.
The 80-foot hydraulic scale is open to the public 24 hours a day, the same as the truck wash that Ballantyne opened June 1.
The impetus for opening the scale was the same as the truck wash: there wasn’t anything like it in or around Elmira. After the truck wash opened, Ballantyne heard from a number of drivers who commented on the need for a scale.
“There’s a lot of owner-operators and some smaller trucking companies that don’t have their own scale,” Ballantyne noted.
Use of the scale hasn’t stopped at trucks, though; Ballantyne has watched with interest as all sorts of vehicles have made their way across.
Paying for use of the scale is as simple as entering your name and billing address and leaving one copy of the weigh slip in a basket. Drivers who have an account for the truck wash can also add the weigh scale to their monthly bill.
The truck wash offers a cleaning bay with automated roll-up doors and 80-foot catwalks running down each side of the bay. The floors are heated and the building will be kept at a comfortable 20 degrees Celsius in winter. The hoses pipe soft water, to prevent streaking, and a ventilation system prevents fogging.
The Union Street location was carefully thought out; in the Elmira industrial park, it’s close to Elmira Truck Service and positioned to pick up truck traffic coming either way through Elmira.
The building has space for a second wash bay to be installed eventually. All the wiring and piping is already in place; with the addition of catwalks and hoses, it could be up and running in a few weeks.
There’s also space for what will eventually be a reception area and offices.
Expansion is still in the future, though; the truck wash has only been up and running for four months. Business picks up later in the day and through the evening, when drivers are no longer trying to beat the daytime rush to their destination.
Business has been quite brisk; more so than Ballantyne expected, in fact.
“It’s been a bad summer for a truck wash with all the rain, but actually it’s gone a lot better than I thought it would to begin with,” he commented.
