About the Mobile Grooming Vans
There are currently three vans in operation with Celia’s Mobile Grooming. These vans are named after Celia’s family dogs. O’Reilly (Freddie’s dad) is the blue van, Bridget (Freddie’s mom) is the purple van, and Freddie is the pink van.
The vans have set-ups that slightly vary, but the equipment is all the same! These vans are DEFINITELY a labor of love. Celia and her father (mostly her father) spend many weeks finding everything it takes to get these beauties put together and then putting them all together! We had to make a grid and plan how we wanted to lay out everything before we even started.
The Equipment
-
The bathtub: A large tub with a door that lifts up to help big dogs in and a removable platform to elevate the little dogs from the bottom of the tub. There is also a ramp to help with getting the larger dogs into the tub.
-
The pump: We have 12 volt pumps with air pressurizer tanks to give us good water pressure.
-
The water heater: We found a great TANKLESS, propane water heater for the vans. They’re mounted on the wall and the water runs straight from the fresh water tank, through the propane heater and out of the hose and onto the dog. The temperature can be adjusted to any degree for the comfort of your beloved pet!
-
The table: The table is a an electric hydraulic Comfort Groom table and is able to lift 400 pounds. Strong enough for any dog!
-
The velocity dryer: The dryers are Metro Air Force Commander Two Speed Dryers with 1.17HP. Using it greatly speeds up the process of drying your dog and it runs quietly so as to not disturb him too much.
-
Electricity: We have two choices on how to power the mobile grooming equipment. The first is to run an extension cord to your house and run the equipment off of that. The second (mainly for apartments or assisted living facilities) is to bring our Honda Generator to power the equipment. The Generator is by special request only as we don’t carry it all the time.
Building The Vans
There were an amazing number of steps that we had to complete in order to make the whole conversion that included sanding, wood filler, sanding the wood filler, painting, painting, mounting ceiling panels, cutting/designing accent borders, laying down linoleum, buffing, painting and mounting the propane tank, placing the bath tub, installing fresh and waste water tanks as well as a drain, building up the wheel well to set the grooming table on, wiring/mounting the lights and making electrical outlets, placing a water pump, water heater and space heater, removing decals from the sides, creating custom racks for shampoos, scissors and the fresh water tank, seeking cabinets to fit in the right spaces, connecting all of the propane equipment AND not to mention, ordering and finding all of the mobile grooming supplies!
