Aaron Muller, President of Hotsy of Las Vegas, shows the companys water reclamation system at Red Rock Window Cleaning Tuesday, June 27, 2023. The system reduces the amount of water used during pressure washing by up to 80 percent.
By Rhiannon Saegert (contact)
Monday, July 10, 2023 | 2 a.m.
A local pressure washer dealer hopes his homebuilt filtration system will help customers save water and open the door for a new kind of water rebate.
Aaron Muller, president of Hotsy of Las Vegas, said he spent about $80,000 building a machine that includes a series of water filters mounted on a trailer that collect water used on pressure washing jobs for reuse.
He and his business partner, Rob Huehnerhoff, built the machine at his shop over the course of about three months. In a year, he hopes to produce three or four more models.
“This was kind of the prototype,” Muller said. “You can’t really sell this to somebody by telling them about it. They have to see and touch it and see it work. That’s why I invested the money to build something like this.”
Coby Powell, founder of Red Rock Window Cleaning, bought the prototype and plans to hold demonstrations for clients, from retail businesses to industrial operations to Strip resorts.
Powell and Muller plan to meet with the Southern Nevada Water Authority to request a new rebate, similar to those for installing water-efficient landscaping.
“We have to do a lot of measurements, a lot of testing and proving before we get a rebate,” Powell said. “But we’re meeting them … to talk about how we can measure that and what kind of monetary value that rebate looks like.”
The average pressure washer uses eight gallons of water a minute, about 480 gallons an hour, Muller said.
Muller said he started developing his system for a truck-washing company in Washington, where wastewater regulations and enforcement are more stringent.
“We came out here and saw that there was a real problem with water shortage issues… and we’re thinking, ‘How do they allow people to pressure wash?’” Muller said. “That [restriction] is coming.”
But Southern Nevada is dustier than Washington, and the old system he and Huehnerhoff developed could clog up within an hour, Muller said.
The new system starts with a 200-foot vacuum hose that sucks up runoff, which workers contain with dams around the work site.
The collected water flows into a pre-filtration bucket, where most of the mud is separated out. There are two pre-filtering buckets on the back of the truck, plus a backup bucket in case one gets clogged.
“That’s one of the biggest challenges of a reclaim system — just mud,” Muller said.
From there, the water passes through a series of 20 filters, plus filter bags that capture oils. Two 230-gallon tanks, one for fresh water and one for recycled water, round out the system.
“It’s not necessarily new technology, but it’s new to Vegas,” Powell said. “It’s surprising that we didn’t start it. It should have started here and made its way to Seattle.”
