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I work out of my garage and was wondering what I could do for some type of filter for my garden hose to wash cars with. The water in this town leaves some bad water spots and I am thinking by rigging up a filter it will help a lot. Just wondering what you guys do, if anything.
I`ve heard of filtration systems that make the water almost as pure as distilled so it leaves virtually no water spots. I don`t know how to get it or what it would cost though. Anyone with information on this?
This may or may not help you as you are looking for a filter to put on a hose. My water at home is well water. Not good for detailing, drinking, showering, or anything besides watering the grass. I am mobile though and filter my water before I put in my tanks. Greatly reduces water spotting by removing calcium.
I got my filter on line at http://www.filters4h2o.com/
they have many water filter options. I got a mack daddy one but it serves double duty supplying our entire home as well. Look, I bet you`l find a nice option there.
If you have well water you can hook up a filter inline with the main water supply. If you have city water then I`m not sure. I have one hooked up inside my well house that I bought from Lowes and it pretty much filters out all of the minerals which cause water spots
All you need is a water softener, no filter required. You can get them anywhere including Lowe`s, Home Depot, and Sears. It exchanges Magnesium, Iron, and Calcium for Sodium which does not leave water spots. You can hook it up to run your whole house (right after your meter) or just on the line to your hose. Your dishes will be cleaner, your skin less slimy feeling (hard water turns soap in to slime, and your water heater will last years longer. Also if your pipes are noisy, it`s turbulence due to hard water deposits in them. They will dissolve if you install a water softener. However, do not go with any of the softener companies like "RainSoft". They charge you an arm and a leg (and your first born) and deliver nothing extra! Get a plumber to install it if you don`t feel comfortable doing it yourself. The unit will pay for itself over time if your water is hard.
Rhillstr,
Are you sure on the softner thing? I am a commercial plumber and it is true that you are removing Magnesium and Calcium in exchange for Sodium. The softner company I deal with does say that a regular softner will remove a small amount of iron. If you have larger amount of iron (soluble) you need to use a softner with a potassium permanganate injector. If the iron is insoluble then you need an iron filter. I have soft water piped to my exterior hose bibb along with hard water. The softner does reduce the amount of spotting a lot. On our dark green van the spots are hardly noticeable. On my black truck they are very noticeable. I`m not sure what the water hardness is in chicago, but in madison I am running between 22 and 24 grains of hardness. Someone mentioned the spotfree water filter and attached a link. I looked at those filters and if you read the fine print it does say that you can not leave the water on the vehicle or it will spot. I guess they mean you still have to towel dry it. I did see a link on this forum for a filter on e-bay that is suppose to get you close to DI water. The unit was a point of use unit. I am talking with the softner/filter company about some type of filter system that can be attached to a hose for spot free rinse (or close to it). The best I have come up with so far is to take a 5 gal Hudson spayer down to the self serve car wash and fill it up with there DI water for a final rinse. I do a final rinse and then spray the vehicle down with there water out of the Hudson sprayer. It works ok and doesn`t leave to many spots. If I find that filter I will post it. I am not trying to upset anyone just giving a little different view.
I found that linkwww.spotfreewash.com/overview.htm
Yep, I`m sure. First of all Iron should not be a problem if you run on city or piped water. Wells are another story as they do not receive treatment, so I completely agree with you.
Now let`s talk a smidge about hard water. Hard water is simply water with "heavy metal ions". Metal will not readily dissolve in water so you actually have metal ions. Sodium and Potassium have a weak positive charge and do not form strong ionic bonds. Therefore they disassociate from their negatively charged anions easily.
For example:
Take Na (sodium) and Cl (Chloride). Na has a charge of +1 and Cl has a charge of -1 thus they are attracted. When attracted they form a salt NaCl which is sodium chloride or "table salt". Now then when water is introduced they rapidly dissolve. Calcium and Magnesium have a charge of +2. When they form salts, they have a much stronger bond to the anion (negatively charged atom). Thus they do not dissolve as rapidly when water is introduced. In plain English heavy metal ions like Calcium and Magnesium are twice as attracted and bond twice as strong. Whew!
Thus as water evaporates off your car, if high Calcium water is left behind it will form salts that are VERY difficult to dissolve and get into the pores of your clear making them hard to physically remove too. Thus waterspots. If you exchange Calcium for Sodium, what a water softener does, you will leave behind Sodium water spots (though often sodium evaporates away with the water leaving fewer and smaller spots that are MUCH easier to dissolve with water). A softener is not a substitute for proper technique. What it will do is be more forgiving. So you wash your car (by the way soap is an anion and is attracted to Calcium and Magnesium and will stick to your car as well!) and rinse as you go. You finish washing and the first parts are dried because you washed in direct sunlight with spots. You go back and re-rinse the roof (dissolving the spots) and then chamois it (waffle weave MF towels are great!) then do the windows and pillars and dry, the hood and dry, the trunk and dry, the sides and dry. You do not spray the water, you let it pour out of the end of the hose so you don`t wet your previous work. No water spots.
Now the spot free rinse is accomplished with DI water but good god it`s so expensive! Just use good technique and cheap water. For a few more minutes of your time you could greatly decrease overhead and increase profits! My experience with pay and sprays is this. They recycle water so they are not DI and they still leave spots, again in my personal experience.
Did this thread die?
Only if you want to bring up the Mr. Clean Auto Dry. Use that and BigRons NuFinish and you will have the ulitmate detail!
It seems like a great idea to get one of these filters or systems, but I can`t justify the cost. It saves some time here and there, but I don`t have well water, so its not that bad. It would be great if you totally didn`t have to dry the car, but i doubt it could ever be that good. So unless you have horrible well water, I would think its just too expensive of an option.
I don`t think you can genuinely avoid drying a car. If you can truly avoid it then you have to deal with waiting around for the car to dry.
Ah yes, Mr. Clean Auto Dry, NuFinish, Armorall interior, and motor oil for tire shine... the ultimate detail!
:lmfao
Thats how things be done on the southside yO! :bandQuote:
Originally posted by rhillstr
Ah yes, Mr. Clean Auto Dry, NuFinish, Armorall interior, and motor oil for tire shine... the ultimate detail!
:lmfao