Question 1

How is dry ice blasting different from pressure washing?

Accepted Answer

Pressure washing puts thousands of gallons of water on the floor, drives contamination into wood and porous substrate, and leaves you with a 24–72 hour dry-down before the asset is back in service. Dry ice blasting uses frozen CO₂ pellets: the blast media sublimates on contact, while the removed contamination remains and has to be captured and handled appropriately. There is no process water and no dry-down, so downtime can often be reduced depending on setup, access, isolation and scope. Because the media is non-conductive, cleaning around motors, panels or food-line controls is often possible — whether anything stays energized is determined by your site safety policy, qualified operators and the written work plan.

Question 2

Is dry ice blasting better than sandblasting or abrasive media?

Accepted Answer

It depends on whether the goal is to remove the substrate or just the contamination. Sandblasting and abrasive media (garnet, walnut shell, glass bead) physically erode the surface — that's the right tool when you need to strip a coating to bare steel for re-paint. Dry ice is low-abrasion: pellet hardness is below cured industrial coatings, painted fleet finishes, and finished stainless, and substrate compatibility is confirmed by testing and written scoping before the full job. It generally cleans without changing the surface profile and leaves no spent blast media to capture or dispose of. The honest rule: if you want bare metal, abrasive. If you want a cleaned painted or sensitive surface with little rework, dry ice.

Question 3

How does dry ice compare to soda blasting?

Accepted Answer

Soda blasting is gentler than sand but still leaves a sodium bicarbonate residue that has to be rinsed off — which means water, contained run-off, and a substrate that has to dry before re-coating or re-use. The residue can also corrode bare aluminum if left in place. Dry ice leaves no blast media because the pellet sublimates to CO₂ gas; the contamination it removes still has to be collected. For engine bays, painted vehicles, aircraft components, and aluminum substrates where post-rinsing isn't practical, dry ice usually wins on cleanup time and on long-term substrate condition.

Question 4

Why use dry ice instead of chemical degreasers or solvents?

Accepted Answer

Chemical solvents (citrus degreasers, caustics, parts-washer chemistry) work, but they need dwell time, agitation, rinsing, secondary waste handling, and worker PPE for the chemical itself. They're also restricted or banned in food zones, USDA / FDA facilities, and many indoor environments. Dry ice is a physical-only process — the method adds no chemistry to the asset, no VOCs, and no rinse water; disposal requirements follow the contaminant that was removed. For food plants, healthcare, and any facility with an indoor air-quality program, dry ice removes the chemical-handling step entirely.

Question 5

Is dry ice blasting faster than hand scrubbing or scraping?

Accepted Answer

Usually. A hood plenum that takes a two-person crew most of a shift to hand-scrape can often be cleaned with dry ice in 60–90 minutes by a single operator, with documented before/after photos, though access and soil load change the number. The same comparison generally holds for conveyor frames, motor housings, electrical cabinets, and structural soot after a fire. Hand work also embeds contamination into rags, scouring pads, and the operator's PPE — dry ice lifts it off the surface so it can be captured.

Question 6

What about hot water or steam cleaning?

Accepted Answer

Steam and hot water are effective on grease where water and dry-down time are acceptable — typically open shops, exterior wash bays, and equipment that can sit out of service for a day. They struggle in three places: near live electrical, anything that rusts, and indoor environments where added moisture feeds mold or fails an indoor air-quality check. Dry ice avoids the moisture problem because nothing wet touches the asset; isolation and LOTO requirements are still determined by your site safety policy and the written work plan.

Question 7

Won't ultrasonic cleaning or parts washing do the same thing?

Accepted Answer

Ultrasonic and parts washing are excellent for parts you can disassemble and submerge. The cost is the disassembly: most of the spend on a typical industrial clean is in tearing the equipment down and putting it back together, not in the cleaning step itself. Dry ice is in-place: the equipment usually stays bolted together, in the cell, on the line, in the rack. For anything you'd rather not pull apart — engine bays, mixers, conveyor drives, gearbox housings, packaging-line frames — dry ice can remove most of the disassembly cost.

Question 8

Is dry ice blasting safe around electrical equipment?

Accepted Answer

CO₂ is a non-conductive, non-aqueous media and the pellets sublimate rather than leaving moisture on the surface, so the method does not add the wetting risk that water-based cleaning does around motor housings, MCC cabinets, bus bars, switchgear and control panels. That is not a blanket safety claim: whether a panel is de-energized, isolated or worked live, and whether LOTO applies, is decided by your site safety policy, qualified personnel and the approved written work plan. We coordinate with your electrician and run vacuum-assisted capture inside cabinet rooms.

Question 9

Is dry ice blasting more expensive than the method I'm using now?

Accepted Answer

Per hour it can be, but the comparison that matters is per finished asset. The hourly view ignores the real cost stack: disassembly, water containment, dry-down time, decal damage, secondary waste disposal, downtime on the production line, and rework when contamination resettles. Our own rates and minimums are on the pricing page, and every job is confirmed in a written estimate. Our cost guide walks through the real numbers by job type.

Question 10

When is dry ice blasting NOT the right answer?

Accepted Answer

We'll tell you when it isn't. Dry ice isn't the right tool for stripping well-bonded paint from bare structural steel (abrasive is faster), for parts that are already disassembled and submersible (ultrasonic is cheaper), for jobs where the substrate genuinely needs water (mortar joints, some masonry restoration), or for very small one-off scopes where the mobile minimum doesn't pencil. In many other industrial, fleet, food-plant, restoration, and equipment-cleaning scenarios, it is a strong option.

Mobile Dry Ice Blasting
That Cleans
In Place

Use the shoulder season to clean what you can't reach in July

When pressure washing, chemicals, scraping, or sandblasting are the wrong tool — Summit Cryo is the answer.

No Process Water Added

No Spent Blast Media Added

Compatibility Test-Patched

Teardown Needs Scoped

Five disciplines. One crew.

Industrial Equipment Cleaning

Fleet & Heavy Equipment Cleaning

Food Plant & Commercial Kitchen Cleaning

Fire, Smoke & Restoration Cleaning

Automotive & Specialty Surface Cleaning

What a dry ice pass actually removes.

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Built for the jobs that can't wait — and the surfaces you can't afford to damage.

Published starting points, not "call for quote" theater.

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Clean, document, schedule

Where we work from Kalispell.

Dry ice vs. the method you're using now

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Mobile Dry Ice BlastingThat CleansIn Place