Based in Cornwall
Dry Ice Blasting for Electrical Equipment
Safe, non-conductive cleaning for electrical panels, switchgear, motors and sensitive equipment without introducing moisture.
Electrical equipment
Cleaning energised assets without introducing water
Dust, carbon, oil mist and conductive deposits settle on windings, busbars, insulators and switchgear surfaces. The consequences are predictable: reduced dielectric strength, tracking, thermal derating, and eventually an outage that arrives as a failure rather than a finding.
The conventional options are poor. Water is out of the question. Solvents leave film and carry hazard. Manual cleaning is slow, inconsistent and reaches only what a cloth can reach, which is never the winding depth or the back of the busbar where the deposit actually sits.
Dry ice blasting is dry and non-conductive throughout. Solid CO₂ pellets are accelerated at the surface; on impact each pellet sublimes, lifting contamination clear of the substrate. No moisture. No residue. No media left in the enclosure.
Our equipment
Dry air, controlled pressure, no compromise
Air quality matters more here than anywhere else we work. An undersized compressor without proper drying introduces moisture into the air stream, which means introducing moisture into an electrical asset. That is the opposite of the job.
Kaeser and Boge compressors hold constant pressure through a full shift. Tundra air dryers keep the supply dry. M-class extraction captures dislodged particulate rather than redistributing it across an open panel or a switch room.
Pellet size, flow rate and pressure are set against the substrate: gentle enough for varnish, coil insulation and delicate windings, firm enough for baked carbon on a housing. Assessment first, configuration second, then the work.
Services
Every service, one method
Every service on this page uses the same dry ice CO₂ process. Non-abrasive, non-conductive, entirely dry. Work is scoped and permitted against your isolation and safe system of work.
Rotating machines
Motor windings & stators
Windings, slot wedges and end laminations cleaned of dust, carbon and oil mist without solvent soak or abrasive contact. Insulation left dry and intact.
Generators & alternators
Stator bores, rotor bodies, end windings and connection rings. Contamination lifted from surfaces that manual cleaning cannot reach without dismantling the machine.
Cooling paths & fins
Fins, ducts, air gaps and fan housings. A layer of soiling is a layer of insulation, and removing it restores designed heat rejection and reduces derating.
Bearing housings & frames
Housings, plinths and frames cleaned without driving contamination into seals or introducing moisture that will sit in the bearing after we leave.
Post-rewind & pre-test clean
Preparation ahead of insulation resistance and polarisation index testing, so results reflect the machine rather than the dirt on it.
Distribution & control
Switchgear & panels
Enclosures, chambers, mechanisms and contact areas. Carbon and dust removed dry, with no residue and no wash-down risk to adjacent live equipment.
Busbars & insulators
Bars, supports, standoffs and insulator surfaces. Removing conductive film and tracking deposits directly addresses flashover risk.
Dry-type transformers
Coils, cores, ducts and cooling paths. Contamination removed without solvent, restoring insulation surfaces and thermal performance together.
Control cabinets & MCCs
Cubicles, backplates, relays, terminals and cable entries. Non-conductive throughout, so components do not require masking or removal.
Cable trays & terminations
Trays, glands, boxes and terminal chambers. Dust and oil film removed from the routes where heat builds and inspection is difficult.
How we programme it
Planned maintenance clean
A scheduled interval that keeps contamination below the level at which it affects insulation resistance or thermal performance.
Pre-inspection & test prep
Cleaning ahead of thermographic survey, insulation testing or statutory inspection, so the survey reads the asset and not the deposit on it.
Post-fault soot removal
Carbon and soot from arcing, overheating or fire removed from enclosures and adjacent equipment, dry, with no wash-down and no corrosive residue.
Thermal derating recovery
Targeted cleaning of cooling paths, fins and ducts where an asset is running hotter than it should and the cause is contamination.
Shutdown & outage work
Work packaged into an isolation window, with no drying time at the end of it delaying re-energisation.
What it delivers
Four reasons this method suits electrical assets
The properties that make dry ice unusual are exactly the properties an electrical asset needs.
Non-conductive throughout
No water, no solvent and no conductive residue. Tracking and surface contamination removed without compromising insulation.
Designed cooling restored
Clearing insulating build-up from fins, ducts and windings returns heat rejection to what the asset was specified for.
No drying time
Because nothing is wet at the end of it, re-energisation is not waiting on the clean. Outage windows stay the length they were planned to be.
Surfaces you can actually read
Clean substrate makes thermographic survey, insulation testing and visual inspection meaningful rather than approximate.
Contamination on an electrical asset is not a cosmetic condition. It is a measurable reduction in insulation performance and heat rejection, and it is reversible.
Coverage
Nationwide, fully mobile
Compressor, dry ice blasters, M-class extraction and containment screening travel with us. There is no fixed geography. A substation in Aberdeen gets the same process as a switch room in Truro.
In isolation
Inside your outage window
Work programmed against your isolation and permit process. Nothing is left wet, so the asset is available for re-energisation as soon as the permit closes.
Around live plant
Adjacent to energised equipment
Where isolation is impractical, containment and M-class extraction confine the working area so cleaning proceeds without exposing adjacent live equipment.
Soot & post-fault contamination
After a fault, the clean-up decides what gets replaced
Arcing, overheating and fire leave carbon and soot across enclosures, adjacent panels and everything downwind of the event. That contamination is conductive and, in the case of fire residue, corrosive. Left in place it continues to damage equipment that survived the fault itself.
Wash-down is not available. Solvent wiping moves the residue around and reaches only flat surfaces. Dry ice removes it from the enclosure, from the mechanism, from the busbar and from the cable chamber, dry, with extraction at source.
The result is often the difference between recovering equipment and replacing it. That is a decision worth making with a clean asset in front of you rather than a contaminated one.
Post-incident work is scoped in writing, with method and access agreed before mobilisation.
Assets we clean
What we clean in electrical environments
Manufacturing plant, utilities, marine, data centres, rewind shops and facilities management. Where the asset cannot get wet and cannot be dismantled, this is the method that remains.
Get in touch
Request a process assessment
Tell us which assets are affected, how they are isolated and what your outage window looks like. We will assess the work and come back with a scope and a price.
- Assessment from a site visit or your photographs
- A written scope and quotation
- No obligation
Prefer to speak to a specialist? Call 01736 804118