Garden hose hard water solution

G

Guy

New member
Recently we moved to a rental house with the hardest water I've ever seen. My cars would literally be white after washing, water streaks, and spots galore, even after drying! So I went to Home Depot and bought a whole house filter and adapted it to fit on my garden hose. Problem solved!



The filter was a GE Smartwater for $15.95, then I bought 3/4 pipe thread adaptors to garden hose. They were Watts brand #A-679 female end, and #A-665 male end. Then I bought the 6" hose savers with the springs around it to give it some flexibility if it gets pulled on too hard. Also I purchased the GE Smartwater filter #1.



No spots, streaks, and I can use a whole lot less soap! When I learn how to use my new digital camera I'll post a pic.
 
Nice idea! I have the most awful hard water as well.... I left a sprinkler on for an hour when we first moved in, and my beater was in the driveway. Looked like a heavy frost, like 1/4 inch thick.... NOTHING, not even cleaning the glass worked. Rain and wear finally did unless I washed it very well. I want to try this... so please post pics! :)
 
I definetly need to get one of those. I have been using qew with distilled bottled water because our water is so bad.
 
I took some pics and uploaded them on the computer! Buy my upload sight is being retarded and I keep getting timed out. Once this situation is fixed I'll send a link to the photos.

I could email pics until then if anyone is interested. Put filter in subject so I don't delete it.



Guy



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Speedwagon, that link is about exactly what I did. Cost was about the same also after I bought the adaptors and filter cartridge.
 
I have a similiar filter at my shop. The filter I use (vailable at Lowe's) traps 1 micron particles. I've been very happy with it. Suggest you develop some sort of reminder/followup scheme to change it monthly?



Jim
 
One of our landscape contractors was using a filter on his hose system to filter out the 'hard' water.

Details: 10" x 2 3/4" ABS - 3/4" in-line connections

Re-placement cartridge capacity- 20-30,000 galls

Cost: $50 from H2Ofilters.com.



I've been using one for about a month now, no more white stuff in the water now
 
Hey, so how has this worked out so far? I noticed on that "Garden Hose" link Speedwagon pasted, they have one of the filters that is specifically for de-ionizing and removing dissolved solids.



Does a regular whole-house type filter do this as well? Has this allowed you to let water dry on the car? Or at least made washing/drying easier? I'm very interested in this... Love to hear some longer-term opinions! :D





Edit: Also, have any of you measured the water? Maybe a simple pH test to see if it has changed? I think alkalines are more filterable than acids, and so filtered water can go from neutral to being more acidic. But mainly I'd be curious to see the resistance of the water. I think regular tap water can have a resistance in the vicinity of 10k ohms, which should be pretty measurable with a normal multi-meter. Anyway, just curious. I plan to do a lot of investigating into this as drying is my least favorite part of car-care (not that I can imagine leaving my car to just dry in the sun, but at least I won't have to rush rush rush to dry and then search for the inevitable few spots that got left).
 
Hmm, I wonder if filtering alone is enough. We recently replaced our bottled water with a Brita water system. I poured the boiled and filtered, Brita'd water onto a black hood, and let it dry. The results? Waterspots.
 
Boiling the water would only make the contaminants more concentrated, as the 'pure' water steams away. All of the salt, chlorine and whatnot are heavier than water, and stay behind.
 
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