Buy the system around the work.

A cleaning drone is the last piece you buy, not the first. The drone is only as good as what feeds it: the pump, the water, the filtration, the hose. We spec the ground system around your buildings, your water supply, and the drone it will feed. Then we put a drone on top of it. That is what this page is about.

• Interview-led. No blind checkout. You talk to Matt before money moves.
• Evidence-labeled. Every figure on this page names its source. Where we could not verify, we say so.
• No hype. We will talk you out of buying when the numbers do not work.

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The skid options, verified only

Every price below comes from a named source. Where the source said unknown, we say unknown. No rounding into false precision, no "from" prices we do not have.

Midwest Washing Equipment drone rigs per the builder

• Core Van Rig: $26,299. Aluminum van skid. 8 GPM at 3,500 PSI industrial triplex pump (Honda GX690 electric start), plus 11.5 GPM at 300 PSI soft wash (Honda GX160/GX200). 3-stage DI filtration, 200-gal water tank, 55-gal chem tank (hardware, part of the skid spec). Three manual hose reels.
• Apex Pro Van Skid: $33,099 plus freight. Same pump systems. Upgrades to 4-stage RO/DI, electric reels, RigLink remote start.
• Ridge open trailer: $31,099. Tandem-axle 7 x 14 ft open trailer, same wash systems, 3-stage DI. Packages: Ridge Pro $32,699 (pure water pump, 150 ft water-fed pole hose, 30 ft Tucker carbon fiber pole and brush), Ridge Force $35,799 (adds diesel-fired on-demand heater), Ridge Ultra $37,499 (Pro and Force combined).
• Ridge enclosed trailer: roughly $32,600 to $34,200 depending on package. Flag: we found two conflicting figures ($32,599 in one source, $34,199 for the Ridge Pro in a direct PDF read). Confirm with the dealer before quoting.
• Truck bed skid: a spec sheet exists, but we could not extract a price. The manufacturer lists it without pricing.

Fits the operator who wants a drone-specific ground system off the shelf from a US builder. The Apex Pro is the pick if your buildings need spot-free DI rinse (glass, solar). The Ridge trailer line is the pick if the rig has to live on wheels and travel between sites.

Expert Power Wash custom drone skid vendor video description only

• 4 x 8 ft van skid: 8 GPM pressure washer, dual-use hose setup (200 ft Fierce Jet pressure hose plus soft wash hose, quick connects for ground work or drone attachment), 100-gal water tank, 100-gal bleach tank (hardware), 7-gal soap tank (hardware), ProMixer XXL, pure water system (sediment, carbon, dual DI) plus dedicated pure water tank, 11-gal fuel tank, electric reels.
• The one detail that matters: a pulser unloader, described as critical for drone operations because it eliminates the violent pressure spike that a standard washer sends up the hose. A ground-fed drone feed must not see that spike. This is the kind of drone-specific engineering we look for.
• Price unknown. Warranty unknown. The builder has not published a price. We will not invent one.

Fits the operator who wants a purpose-built van skid designed around drone feed specifically, and is comfortable buying a custom build rather than a line product.

3R RAPTOR general skid per a reseller listing

• $24,923, in stock. 3,500 PSI, 8 GPM cold water, Honda GX690 electric start, 11-gal aluminum fuel tank. 12-volt soft wash (100 PSI, 7 GPM Remco diaphragm pump). Titan aluminum reels with 200 ft x 3/8 in hoses. 55-gal bleach tank (hardware). 100-gal water tank. Training at pickup.
• Honest note: this is a general pressure-wash skid. It was not designed around a drone feed. No pressure-spike control shown, no hose weight budget shown, no drone reel braking shown.

Fits the operator who already understands drone feed engineering and wants to adapt a solid general skid, or who wants a price anchor for what a bare complete skid retails at.

Ground-fed and tether systems

These are not skids, but a buyer landing on this page needs to know they exist. Each with a one-line verdict.

• Lucid Power Tether (Sherpa 1 and 1.5). Ground-power unit for the Sherpa. Price unpublished.
• Foxtech AeroClean T-M400C dual water and power tether. 1,595 to 2,320 PSI, about 132 gal/hour, 197 ft support ceiling, 262 ft tethered water hose, 8-hour continuous power per the manufacturer. EUR 18,300 at an Italian dealer. That is EUR, not USD.
• DroneBase Unlimited dual-tether package. EUR 41,602 incl VAT (vendor claim). That is EUR, not USD. Their "only DJI-certified aerial cleaning system" line is a vendor claim with no DJI-issued confirmation.
• ABZ C10 ground-fed system (per official ABZ documents). 2,900 PSI max, about 4 GPM, 197 ft working height. Flight is battery-powered, fluid is ground-fed. Optional hose lengths 98 ft or 197 ft. Red flag, stated plainly: the documented optional pump (Karcher HD 7/17 M Plus) is 400V / 50Hz European industrial power, not typical US jobsite power. US configuration unknown. Confirm before quoting.

Also seen: the powerwash.com Mustang Mini Skid is marketed as approved for drone use, but the listing showed no price and no drone-specific engineering details, so it does not get a card.

Match a ground system to my work

There is no single max hose length. Here is the math instead.

Pressure loss: at 4 GPM through 3/8-in hose, you lose about 90 PSI per 100 ft, before fittings and elevation. That is an engineering reference, not a test of any rig.

Elevation: every vertical foot of water column costs about 0.433 PSI. That is a calculation. A 150 ft climb eats about 65 PSI before the hose even matters.

Hose weight: commercial 3/8-in pressure hoses run about 0.08 to 0.33 lb per foot dry (independent catalog observation). One independent washing-drone paper found hose weight near 0.44 lb/ft limited its test aircraft to roughly 49 to 66 ft. That was their experiment, not a universal limit.

Per-system numbers only: Foxtech ships a 262 ft tethered water hose with the T-M400C (manufacturer spec).

The FAA claim we will not repeat: one 2026 press article characterized a 140 ft FAA cap when connected to a ground hose. That is the publication's characterization, not a codified Part 107 rule. A tether does not exempt you from Part 107: VLOS, airspace authorization, and altitude limits all still apply. The standard limit is 400 ft AGL with the structure provision. Anything attached to the aircraft, including the hose, counts toward the 55 lb limit. The exact treatment of dynamically supported hose weight is a question for FAA or aviation counsel, not this page.

This is why the interview matters. Hose diameter, water weight, fittings, wind, your building height, and your reel setup all change the answer. We run the numbers with you before you spend.

What we could not verify

Unanswered questions are a reason to talk to us, not a reason to guess.

1. Only Midwest Washing Equipment and Expert Power Wash build drone-specific skids in the US. Everything else is a general wash skid marketed as drone-compatible, without drone-specific engineering like pressure-spike control, reel braking, or hose weight budgets. That is our research finding.
2. No current standalone RO/DI vendor pricing confirmed for drone rigs. The only pure-water figures on this page sit inside the Midwest rigs: 3-stage DI on Core and Ridge, 4-stage RO/DI on the Apex. The Foxtech optional purification unit is 220V / 50Hz European. Confirm the US configuration.
3. Hose reel and trailer safety (hose whip, burst protection, tether entanglement, generator grounding/GFCI, wet electrical environments, chemical compatibility, emergency release) was not researched. We flag it as a setup-review topic.
4. US service reality: no maker publishes a US authorized service center network. Confirm repair turnaround with the dealer before buying anything.

What it really costs to get job-ready

• Apellix full startup: $75,000 to $105,000. Drone $47,000 to $75,000 plus about $30,000 ground gear. Per a sponsored press guide.
• Sherpa path: $72,000 to $112,500 all in, roughly. Drone $45,750 to $75,000 plus skid $26,299 to $37,499. That is our arithmetic from the labeled figures above.
• Ground-fed systems (ABZ, Aspira, Desert Aerial, AhatTek) need the operator's own pressure washer, tank, and hose unless a turnkey skid is purchased. The $22,000 to $28,000 Desert Aerial package price is drone only, no ground system. AhatTek $29,995 is drone only, no ground washer.
• Our complete-system bands below are DOTF packaging: 64k to 105k. The interview sets the quote.

The complete system band

Most operators budget 64k to 105k all in. That covers the drone, the ground system, and training. Most systems also pair the drone with Tucker water-fed pole kits for the glass the drone cannot touch or is not worth flying for.

Why our systems cost what they cost

We are not the cheapest way to buy a drone. We never will be. Complete systems run from 64k to 105k because that is what a working system costs when nothing important is left out: the aircraft, the ground system, the water and filtration to feed it, the poles for the glass a drone should not touch, and the training to run it safely.

• Curation. We spec the system around the work, not the brochure. The interview comes before the quote, and the configuration changes with your buildings, your water, and your crew.
• Evidence-labeled advice. Every claim in our guides shows its source: manufacturer spec, field observation, industry practice, or regulation. When the evidence is thin, we say so instead of filling the gap with hype.
• No hype. We will tell you when a water-fed pole beats a drone, and we will talk you out of buying when the numbers do not work. A vendor who tells you not to buy is the only vendor worth listening to.
• Real support after the sale. You get a phone number that answers when the rig is down, and Matt reviews every setup request personally. The interview comes before any invoice.

No fake urgency. No dark patterns. No countdown timers, no expiring discounts. The interview sets the quote, and it is the same quote whether you ask today or next month.

Get your system matched

DRONE: 30k to 65k

The aircraft, batteries, and flight gear.

What moves the number: new vs preowned, single vs dual ship, battery pool size, airframe capability tier.

The aircraft in our builds comes from one partner inventory. See the cleaning drone aircraft lineup we build around, supplied through our aircraft dealer partner Drone Nerds.

SKID: 30k to 70k

The ground system: pumps, filtration and DI, hose and reels, chemistry handling. Skid or trailer.

What moves the number: skid vs trailer, hose length and reel type, DI and purification, new vs preowned ground gear, how much the operator already owns.

Preowned, done honestly

New or preowned is decided in the interview, never on the website. Every preowned unit passes our inspection checklist, documented and shared before money moves. What fails inspection is non-negotiable.

A vendor who tells you when not to buy is the only vendor worth listening to.