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 that sublimate on contact — no water, no run-off, no dry-down, and the equipment is energized-safe so you don't have to LOTO motors, panels, or food-line controls just to clean around them. For anything with electrical, sensitive bearings, decals, paint you want to keep, or food-contact surfaces, dry ice is usually the only mobile method that doesn't create a second problem to clean up.

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 non-abrasive: pellet hardness is below cured industrial coatings, painted fleet finishes, and food-grade stainless. It cleans without changing the surface profile, leaves no spent media to capture or dispose of, and doesn't require the same containment tent. The honest rule: if you want bare metal, abrasive. If you want a cleaned painted or sensitive surface with no 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 is also corrosive to bare aluminum if left in place. Dry ice leaves zero residue because the pellet sublimates to CO₂ gas. For engine bays, painted vehicles, aircraft components, and any aluminum substrate where post-rinsing isn't practical, dry ice 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 — no chemistry on the asset, no VOCs in the air, no rinse water, no hazardous-waste manifest. 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

Almost always. A hood plenum that takes a two-person crew most of a shift to hand-scrape can be cleaned with dry ice in 60–90 minutes by a single operator, with documented before/after photos. The same comparison 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 just lifts it off the surface and out through capture.

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: live electrical, anything that rusts, and indoor environments where added moisture feeds mold or fails an indoor air-quality check. Dry ice handles all three because nothing wet ever touches the asset, and energized cabinets stay live during the work.

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 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 eliminates the disassembly cost entirely.

Question 8

Is dry ice blasting really safe for electrical equipment?

Accepted Answer

Yes — that's one of its defining advantages. CO₂ is a non-conductive, non-aqueous dielectric, and the pellets sublimate before any moisture can form on a surface. Energized motor housings, MCC cabinets, bus bars, switchgear, and control panels can be cleaned without LOTO. We still coordinate with your electrician, follow your site's LOTO and live-work rules, and run vacuum-assisted capture inside cabinet rooms — but the method itself doesn't add electrical risk the way water-based cleaning does.

Question 9

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

Accepted Answer

Per hour, yes — dry ice runs $250–$300/hr where pressure washing runs $75–$150/hr and abrasive runs $150–$250/hr. Per finished asset, it's usually equal or cheaper, because the hourly comparison 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. The honest comparison is total job cost, not hourly labor. 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 every other industrial, fleet, food-plant, restoration, and equipment-cleaning scenario, it's usually the highest-leverage option.

Mobile Dry Ice Blasting
That Cleans
Without Shutdown

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

No Water

No Chemicals

Non-Abrasive

Minimal Downtime

Five disciplines. One crew.

Industrial Equipment Cleaning

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14-Hour Deep Clean of a 3-Line Bakery — Spokane, WA

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Dry ice vs. the method you're using now

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Mobile Dry Ice BlastingThat CleansWithout Shutdown