Patent ID: 6120614
Filing Date: 2000-09-19
Classification: B08B,B60S

Abstract:
A pressure washing apparatus for washing an object having a contaminant comprising:a subfloor assembly for supporting an object to be washed, and adapted to direct contaminated fluids which are flowed over the object to remove the contaminant towards a run-off portion thereof;a settling compartment positioned below the subfloor assembly having a collection end, in fluid communication with the run-off portion for receipt of substantially all the run-off contaminated fluids from said subfloor assembly, and an accumulation end, positioned downstream from and flowably coupled to said collection end through a relatively long first flowpath adapted to create a substantially uniform, relatively slow, non-turbulent flow from the collection end toward the accumulation end to separate the relatively lightweight contaminants of the contaminated fluids from the relatively heavyweight contaminants of the contaminated fluids, said light contaminants being caused to substantially rise toward an operational fluid level in said settling compartment while said heavyweight contaminants are caused to substantially settle toward a bottom of said settling compartment during flow along the first flowpath; anda pump assembly arranged to draw and filter fluid from the accumulation end and return the filtered fluid into a separate clean fluid compartment;whereby fluid pumped from the clean fluid compartment may be used to wash contaminants from the object and a circulation flowpath defined by the settling compartment promotes the removal of the contaminants from the collected run-off contaminated fluid.