need help figuring out how hard my water is????

I normally don`t try to wash my vehicles in my driveway. The local coin op with my bucket prefilled with my Mitt is how I have been doing them for the last couple years. This last weekend the wife`s ride was just dusty and I thought, "hmm, lets just quick wash that in the driveway" so I did.

WATER SPOTS EVERYWHERE

OK...

I dug into our town`s website and found the following

What is "hard" water?Hardness is drinking water is mainly the result of the presence of two minerals; calcium and magnesium. If either of these minerals are present in your water in large amounts, the water is said to be "hard" because making a lather or suds for washing is difficult (hard) to do. Water containing little calcium or magnesium is referred to as "soft" water. Our water is 38-40 grains per gallon.

Does this mean I actually have good water? is that 38-40 PPM or grains per gallon different?

I really need to figure something out for filtering the water a little bit or maybe getting a hose plugged into a soft water line? I am not sure, Is that even safe?

Any help would be great.

TIA

IMO the "good water" thing gets subjective (and I don`t mean that in a bad way).

Noting that I can`t remember what my TDS levels are...I have the same water as my neighbors and some other friends. I`m the *only* person who thinks it needs softened beyond what the water company does. IMO it`s "good" if it`s what *you* want it to be.

My softened water still leaves some slight spotting/etc., that`s why I have the CRS deionizer for times when I won`t be drying thoroughly.

Eh, the above isn`t of much use, huh? :o

I have a boat at a marina which is on well water. The water is crazy hard and waterspots were unavoidable. I purchased this Soft Wet Spot | The Original Portable Water Softening System which made all the difference. This thing is basically a crude water softener. If you have a water softener in your house, I would pipe into that for washing cars. I am on city water at home but the water is not very hard. Me and people in my neighborhood do not have water softeners so I use one of these to wash cars also. I`ve been doing it for years with no problems.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by DanHen

. If you have a water softener in your house, I would pipe into that for washing cars.

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Sounds like your home`s water is kinda like my situation. I ended up having a dedicated softener for the garage, i regenerates on a different schedule from the one that serves the house.

So if I plumb a soft water line up to my garage(the utility room is in the basement on the wall of the attached garage) I can use that to wash with and not have any adverse effects? If so, that seems like a decent option going forward. Installing a spigot for a hose should be pretty straight forward being as the water softener is not far and I bet I can get a line there pretty easy.

Yeah, I gave up on my CR Spotless and re-piped my driveway faucet to the soft water. As Accumulator says, it leaves spots, but they are nothing like hard water spots, and of course all the soaps work better.

Sweet. I am out of town this weekend but I bet I can get this knocked out "somewhat" easy. If it is in fact, "easy", I will be pretty upset with myself for not doing it sooner. My biggest decision will be if I do HOT water or cold water, or both. Hmm.

I would go with both hot and cold. Also, a mixing valve or a tee setup in the hose. You wouldn`t want extremely hot water but very warm is good. I wash cars in the winter at my shop with very warm water and it seems to clean the dirt much easier.

screeby- Yeah, I too think you oughta add the hot water line. Since you`re doing a bit of a job anyhow...

FWIW, I *always* wash/rinse with warm (i.e., hot + cold) water, infinitely better than with just cold (and no, it doesn`t compromise LSP). And hot water is great for lots of jobs, it simply cleans better than cold.