Dry Ice Cleaning

What Is Dry Ice Cleaning?

How It Works

Dry ice cleaning uses solid carbon dioxide (dry ice) pellets to clean the interior, exterior, and underside of your vehicle and get it back to like-new condition. The dry ice removes contaminants from various surfaces, including leather, without leaving a chemical residue behind.

As soon as the dry ice hits the surface, sublimation happens, which means that it turns into a gas without becoming a liquid. That helps the contaminants (i.e., dirt and rust) get removed quicker and more effectively than alternative cleaning methods.

What is Sauber Northwest

Preservation and Restorative Service Facility

Founded in 2022 by Tim Walbridge and Joe DeCarlo, Sauber NW located in Beaverton, Oregon is the most advanced Dry Ice Cleaning Facility in North America. Our objective is to implement and grow the most focused automotive cleaning, preservation and restorative service facility utilizing the latests advancement in the industry to provide the highest quality solutions for your project. We knew from our research that we wanted to contain the fine powder that is a result of the remaining dust particles returning to room temperature and falling back to the ground after being frozen and atomized in the blasting process. This fine dust can wreak havoc on an OCD’s mind (like ours). So we went to work building an automotive style cross draft booth for our purposes.

A massive 34” fan on the roof creates a flow pulling fresh air in through the filter doors and moves debris away from the blasted surface and captures it in the plenum filter wall. We then bolted in a NussBaum OTTO 9K 2-Post lift to get the access we needed. 

Once the air flow and positioning was managed we turned to lighting. This is where our friends at PDX Garages came in. Their assortment of LED lighting was the perfect solution. By moving the lighting down the walls and creating adjustable angles to get the areas we were working on illuminated, we removed the need for floor lamps and spot lights. Hex lighting was added to the roof panels for a little extra flair and really pour light in to the top panels.

Now that we had the structure complete it was time to get the pros at Rogers Machinery out to help up design a future proof air compressor and dryer system. They absolutely delivered in the form of a KRV Series 75HP Screw Compressor as the heartbeat providing a constant supply 800 gallons of air all dried via a Hankison HHX Series Desiccant Air Dryer fed via copper lines. This massive set up provides a fully adjustable and efficient 200psi/200cfm that allows us to do the most gentle of surfaces all the way up to full paint removal.

Now that we had all the hard parts installed and tested we were ready for the stars of the show. We chose to go with a two machine route. First up is the ICS IC 022 Evo Dry Ice Cleaning System for our smaller and more sensitive jobs where massive air and particle manipulation isn’t needed. This compact and efficient machine has been invaluable as an accessory to work on the smaller projects while the big brute does the heavy lifting. The ability of the OCS to clean Alcantara, carpet, vents and dashes and well as small hard to reach areas in the engine bay is unmatched.

To really pump up the volume we needed a machine with the ability to handle more air volume, pressure and the ability to manipulate the dry ice pellet size. In comes the ColdJet PCS 60. This absolute workhorse is the pulse of Sauber NW and is why 80% of our jobs are cleaned with this. This revolutionary machine allows us to adjust the air flow and particle size to be as unique as each job we tackle. We have found that there is no match for the PCS 60 in the way that it tackles dirt, oil, grease and overall build up that cakes the underside of our vehicles over their lifetime. The great thing about the PCS 60 is the ease of use for us. Just give it some air and a little power and bring on the dirt!

This results in a keeping your temperatures down, keeping destructive toxins off your surfaces and extending the life of your soft parts. Now if your car was an east coast or coastal car there is a fair chance there is some rust of some degree under there. While the process will remove the scale and very slight surface of the rust, it cannot remove the deep cancerous rust nor the damage that has occurred. Equally as tough is the damage from salt corrosions and in certain instances mud and dirt that has sat on the surface for an extended amount of time can actually etch the surface creating irreparable scarring.

Loose parts are another part of our service catalog. Simply bring in your components you want blasted and we take care of the rest. Cosmoline, Grease, Paint, Carbon build up (yes we can Carbon Clean your intake system too), you name it. This is a great way to get clean parts for an engine rebuild or to have a fresh surface to work with on a teardown. The uses for Dry Ice Cleaning go far beyond Automotive though.

Dry Ice Restoration can be used in fire/smoke mitigation, Graffiti removal, mold mitigation and so much more. Dry Ice is actually one of the only ways to killing off black mold spores. So if yo have a surface that is covered in something you don’t want there, give Sauber NW a call and lets see how we can assist.