Anybody ever use RO/DI filtered water to wash their car?

I hate to take this thread too far off topic but has anyone actually used a water softener for spotless rinsing? They neutralize calcium and magnesium which I would think is responsible for spotting.
 
citizen arcane said:
I hate to take this thread too far off topic but has anyone actually used a water softener for spotless rinsing? They neutralize calcium and magnesium which I would think is responsible for spotting.
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Yup, I went with soft water filters first. The problem is that soft water filters exchange sodium ions for calcium ions. So the water comes out as salty (proportionately) as it was hard. Sodium leaves spots, too. I wish it was as easy as using just soft water, 'cause those filters were very easy to "recharge"; a simple soak in salt water and they were GTG again. For truly spot free drying, you really do need fully de-ionized water.
 
SuperBee364 said:
Yup, I went with soft water filters first. The problem is that soft water filters exchange sodium ions for calcium ions. So the water comes out as salty (proportionately) as it was hard. Sodium leaves spots, too. I wish it was as easy as using just soft water, 'cause those filters were very easy to "recharge"; a simple soak in salt water and they were GTG again. For truly spot free drying, you really do need fully de-ionized water.
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Yep. My CRSpotless is used to *prevent* the spotting I get with softened water.



I *do* think that using Potassium Chloride in the softener (instead of salt) helps a *little* bit, but you still get the spotting.



Nice thing about the softened water is that the spots aren't as much of a PIA to clean off as with hard water, a little QD always does it for me.
 
Accumulator, is the water you're putting into your CRSpotless first treated by your home water softener, then? Greg Nichols has a customer that is getting a CRSpotless, and he was going to hook it up to pre-softened water. Neither one of us could tell him if that was OK to do or not.
 
SuperBee364 said:
Accumulator, is the water you're putting into your CRSpotless first treated by your home water softener, then? Greg Nichols has a customer that is getting a CRSpotless, and he was going to hook it up to pre-softened water. Neither one of us could tell him if that was OK to do or not.
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I would just call CR. They can tell you for sure. I would think that it wouldn't hurt, but I don't think it will help either. Let us know what you find out.
 
SuperBee364 said:
Accumulator, is the water you're putting into your CRSpotless first treated by your home water softener, then? Greg Nichols has a customer that is getting a CRSpotless, and he was going to hook it up to pre-softened water. Neither one of us could tell him if that was OK to do or not.
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Yeah, that's what I'm doing.



I have redundant systems for the house and the garage shop.



The water for the garage is filtered (twin 5-micron filers in series) then softened (with the potassium chloride). From there it runs to the garage (and is also tapped for the RO system in the kitchen) so all the water to the garage is treated that way. Works fine IME.



I look at it this way (which might be completely wrong :nixweiss ), the same way waterspots/residue/etc. from softened water is easier to clean off, perhaps it's also easier for the resin to deal with. As I said, I don't really know..if the softening really is a direct (one-for-one) ion-exchange I could also argue it's doing the exact same job. But so far so good with my setup and I'm not gonna run all the way from the shop to the basement of the house to bypass the softener when I'm using the CRSpotless anyhow. (There's no separate unsoftened water run out to the garage.)
 
Cool, thanks. I guess as long as the TDS meter is showing zero, that's all that really matters. I'm thinking of installing another TDS meter on the upstream side of the CRSpotless to get a continuous reading of how hard the water is that's going into the unit.
 
SuperBee364 said:
.. I'm thinking of installing another TDS meter on the upstream side of the CRSpotless to get a continuous reading of how hard the water is that's going into the unit.
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Noting that there are some definite limits to my intellectual curiosity regarding this stuff, I'd just get your water tested once, take note, and say "good enough". Lots of places will test it for free, my plumbing contractor got mine tested before we did all the work last year (no, I don't remember what the results were).



The test strips you can buy give *VERY* rough approximations, but they might tell you enough depending on your level of interest.
 
blk45 said:
You can pick up a hand held meter for $12-15.
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Accumulator said:
Noting that there are some definite limits to my intellectual curiosity regarding this stuff, I'd just get your water tested once, take note, and say "good enough". Lots of places will test it for free, my plumbing contractor got mine tested before we did all the work last year (no, I don't remember what the results were).



The test strips you can buy give *VERY* rough approximations, but they might tell you enough depending on your level of interest.
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I'l probably just pick up a cheap one and wire it into the incoming water stream. There's actually a reason for all this TDS information on the water going in to the CRSpotless. I have a bunch of mostly spent resin. I'm going to put the old resin in my old home made filter system up stream of the CRSpotless. Then when the incoming TDS on the CRSpotless hits the same level as unfiltered water, I'll swap out the totally spent resin in my home made system for more mostly spent stuff. The resin is so expensive I want to make sure it's totally done in before chucking it.
 
That's awfully frugal of you Supe! Good idea though. Might as well get as much use out of it as you can.
 
blk45 said:
That's awfully frugal of you Supe! Good idea though. Might as well get as much use out of it as you can.
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Yeah, at least until I can finally get in touch with someone that's interested in bulk pricing.
 
Or until you decide to try that DIY regeneration thing ;)



But yeah, good way to put your old system to some use :xyxthumbs
 
Accumulator said:
The CRSpotless is a simple little contraption you wheel out, use to rinse the car, and put away. Very quick, easy and simple. The resin lasts quite a while if you run filtered and softened water through it at 40 psi. Once in a blue moon you replace the resin but I haven't had to do it yet.



:nixweiss
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After researching this a bit longer it seems people are complaining the media does not last long at all. Am I missing something. Are you saying you are also using a water softener and it is helping the DI media last longer?
 
SuperBee364 said:
Accumulator, is the water you're putting into your CRSpotless first treated by your home water softener, then? Greg Nichols has a customer that is getting a CRSpotless, and he was going to hook it up to pre-softened water. Neither one of us could tell him if that was OK to do or not.
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Yes, the best thing would be to ask the CRSpotless people, but IMO softened water will not extend the life of a DI filter system. The reasoning is you are merely replacing Ca/Mg ions with sodium and the TDS essentially remains constant. You might extend the life of the DI filter cartridges by using a carbon pre-filter to reduce the chlorine content, but the caveat here would be that you don't restrict your water flow too much with carbon filters that there wouldn't be enough flow/volume to operate the CRSpotless effectively.
 
1BADTUNDRA said:
After researching this a bit longer it seems people are complaining the media does not last long at all. Am I missing something. Are you saying you are also using a water softener and it is helping the DI media last longer?
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How long the DI filters will last is directly proportional to the TDS of the incoming water. If you have very hard water, your DI filters will get used up quickly.



See my reply above about how using a water softener prior to DI filtering will not especially help the DI media last any longer.
 
I'll defer to chml17l's opinon; I too would think that the TDS stays the same with the only diff being the ions being switched to (in my case) potassium chloride. BUT, noting that I only use it to rinse off the Yukon and MPV, my CRS media sure seems to be lasting quite a while; I just checked my detailing log and (oops) I never noted when I started using the CRS, so I can't say just how long it's really lasted :nixweiss



I simply don't know whether the softened water is easier on the media than hard water but I haven't had to replace my media yet. So at the very least I sure can't imagine the softened water is making things *worse*.



Wonder if my 5-micro pre-filters help any. Also wonder what CRSPotless would say; IMO we're all guessing and if somebody *really* cares it'd be worth the phone call.



BTW, I'm assuming that everyone has made certain that the incoming water pressure isn't over the recommended 40psi and that you're all using a properly sized hose and low-flow nozzle setting....
 
chml17l said:
Yes, the best thing would be to ask the CRSpotless people, but IMO softened water will not extend the life of a DI filter system. The reasoning is you are merely replacing Ca/Mg ions with sodium and the TDS essentially remains constant. You might extend the life of the DI filter cartridges by using a carbon pre-filter to reduce the chlorine content, but the caveat here would be that you don't restrict your water flow too much with carbon filters that there wouldn't be enough flow/volume to operate the CRSpotless effectively.
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Accumulator said:
I'll defer to chml17l's opinon; I too would think that the TDS stays the same with the only diff being the ions being switched to (in my case) potassium chloride. BUT, noting that I only use it to rinse off the Yukon and MPV, my CRS media sure seems to be lasting quite a while; I just checked my detailing log and (oops) I never noted when I started using the CRS, so I can't say just how long it's really lasted :nixweiss



I simply don't know whether the softened water is easier on the media than hard water but I haven't had to replace my media yet. So at the very least I sure can't imagine the softened water is making things *worse*.



Wonder if my 5-micro pre-filters help any. Also wonder what CRSPotless would say; IMO we're all guessing and if somebody *really* cares it'd be worth the phone call.



BTW, I'm assuming that everyone has made certain that the incoming water pressure isn't over the recommended 40psi and that you're all using a properly sized hose and low-flow nozzle setting....
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Yup, that's exactly right. I wasn't thinking in terms of extending the media life at all. I just didn't know if the resin would grab the sodium out of the pre-softened water the way it will calcium.



Being as how it'll grab sodium, it looks like it would be OK to use pre-softened water through the CR.
 
SuperBee364 said:
Yup, that's exactly right. I wasn't thinking in terms of extending the media life at all. I just didn't know if the resin would grab the sodium out of the pre-softened water the way it will calcium.



Being as how it'll grab sodium, it looks like it would be OK to use pre-softened water through the CR.
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Note that my garage (and drinking) water is softened with *potassium* chloride instead of (the much less expensive :o ) *sodium* chloride. No idea if this makes a diff....
 
Well Supe, I guess that's it for the cheap CRSpotless trials. After messing with a couple of different small filters from that older thread I determined that if I messed with it again it would be with a CRS system instead of screwing around with the smaller filters. Sometimes $300 or $400 doesn't look so bad after you've wasted almost 1/2 of that in other filters.
 
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